In Which the Princess Rescues the Dragon
by Vera Rozalsky
Summary: Post-DH. The line between politics and family is razor-thin, especially when you’re a daughter of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. Following the Battle of Hogwarts, Andromeda Tonks receives a condolence note from a surprising source.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

It's June of 1998, and the sunlight of a mellow English summer filters through the foliage of the hedgerow that divides the Burrow's garden from the common road. The Burrow is a beautiful house, or what Andromeda has come to think of as beautiful: lived-in, rescued from chaos by dint of clever frugality, a house with creaky floors that breathes and hums to itself at night. But it's not her house.

Andromeda Tonks would never have guessed that at age forty-five she would be nursing her grandson in Molly Weasley's kitchen.

Everyone thought that things would be simpler after the war, though she had already known that they were wrong. She never had the Sight, but weeks before the Battle of Hogwarts, something bone-deep, mother's intuition perhaps, told her that it was best that little Teddy preferred her as a nurse. Nymphadora was restless all those months of her pregnancy, pacing like a tiger in the close quarters of their little house, equally worried about Remus and about her father. Plenty to worry about there, but Andromeda had seen that look in her eye: just as soon as she gave birth, she'd be itching to get out and join the fight. She still shakes her head over why her Amazon daughter decided to get married—in the middle of a war yet—and then have a child. That marriage was shakier than any she'd seen, not that she's allowed to say that aloud now that both of them are dead.

Nymphadora hadn't objected when Andromeda sat down with her a week before the birth to talk about the nursing of the baby, and to teach her the lactation charm that had been passed down through generations of witches in the Black line. It was designed for just this situation, to guarantee the survival of the child of a witch who was killed in battle, or more usually, family succession struggles. At the time there was the possibility, as well, that Nymphadora would have to go into hiding somewhere more secure, and it wasn't clear with whom the baby would be safest.

There had already been one visit paid by some lower-ranking Death Eaters, which Andromeda had handled by hustling Nymphadora into the back room (with the understanding that she would Apparate to Shell Cottage if things went pear-shaped) while she went out front to draw herself to her full height and do her best Offended Pureblood Aristocrat impression ("I am a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. _I am the sister of Bellatrix Lestrange._ Surely you've heard of Bellatrix? You can ask her if you doubt me.") Not that she'd had to recite those lines in so many words. The resemblance to Bellatrix was credential enough. They cringed before she had a chance to open her mouth—the first and only time it was a relief to bear such a strong resemblance to Lord Voldemort's lieutenant and torturer-in-chief.

So when Teddy Lupin was born, his first nurse was his grandmother. Andromeda knew she'd chosen wisely when not a few weeks later, Nymphadora and Remus joined the uprising at Hogwarts. That's what they were calling it then: the uprising. Hogwarts was making a fight against Voldemort and his full forces. It wasn't until they won that everyone started calling it the Battle of Hogwarts.

They got the summons at ten o'clock at night from Aberforth Dumbledore at the Hog's Head. She still remembers the expression on Remus' face: dour and determined, and years older than he really was—the face of a man who was going to his death and knew it. It was hard to believe that this thin graying man with the deep lines around his mouth was actually the school chum of her little cousin Sirius, and harder yet to believe that her daughter was married to him.

Nymphadora's face was alight with the joy of anticipated battle, and the ferocious determination not to be separated from her beloved. There was a fraction of a second where she saw a flash of her sister Bellatrix in the too-young warrior who reached for the Floo powder, and said, "Well, mum, I'm off to Hogwarts, and I'll be back—with my shield or on it." Then she winked, threw the glittering stuff into the fire, stepped in, and was gone.

A flash of Bellatrix. Except that Bellatrix never winked.

She never saw either of them again, alive or dead. Kingsley Shacklebolt Flooed her from the Hog's Head at nine o'clock the next morning to tell her the news. As Acting Minister for Magic he was able to commandeer communications. Everything was horribly snarled; the townspeople of Hogsmeade and the relatives of the students at the school had joined the fight, but somehow word had propagated yet further. As they were sorting it out, it appeared that the auxiliaries had included yet more spur-of-the-moment volunteers, including some witches and wizards, both foreigners and British exiles, who had Apparated into Hogsmeade from across the Channel. He advised her that he could meet her in Hogsmeade to identify the bodies if she so wished, but positive identification had already been made by several Order members on the scene and the situation at Hogwarts was mass confusion.

At the time, the practical and patriotic thing had seemed to be to do what in fact she did, which was to remain at home with Teddy until the all-clear was given and the memorial service hastily organized on the Hogwarts grounds.

Only now she has dreams in which Nymphadora is knocking on the window and telling her mum to let her in because she really isn't dead. She doesn't dream about Remus. Her dreaming mind is quite satisfied that he's dead; his last look to her said as much. There's a tiny voice at the back of her mind that says it was suicide, or at very least that he met death half-way. Unjust, of course. She heard from witnesses that what he met was Bellatrix in fighting mode, and that he gave her the fight of his life—the man had taught Defense Against the Dark Arts and been a fair duelist—and nonetheless Bellatrix killed him, and then killed Nymphadora when she came to his aid mere seconds too late.

"With my shield or on it." As if she'd been the kind of Spartan mother who would have demanded that. Nymphadora had to joke, didn't she? The fates did not have a sense of humor, and they liked to turn jokes like that inside out, along with the unlucky who made them.

Ted's gone, too, and the details of his death are murky.

That's the hardest part, to lose everyone at once. Ted's motorbike is still standing in the garage, his lovingly tended project that he finished a month before Nymphadora's wedding. He even offered it to her as a wedding gift, but she turned him down: _that_ was when she'd looked grim. "After the war, dad, if I come through it," she said. "Till then, you should enjoy it in good health."

It is still there untouched, even after the werewolf pack came tearing through the premises a week after the victorious battle. Werewolves aren't particularly interested in Muggle machines, reserving their vandal attentions for flesh and blood. It was the eleventh of May, a little more than a week after the battle, and she'd come home from the Order of Merlin awards ceremony, declining Kingsley's invitation to the party at the Ministry. She was tired, and Teddy was cranky.

The ceremony had been long, not so much because of the speeches but because of the number of awards given. Sitting in the stands and nursing Teddy, she noted that Kingsley Shacklebolt looked every inch the Minister of Magic: tall, dark, stately, with a resonant voice that hardly needed the Sonorus charm to be heard in the back row. They held the ceremony on the Hogwarts grounds, and wizarding Britain more or less shut down to attend it, with fair representation from overseas. She'd sat next to Viktor Krum the Quidditch player, a friend of Fleur Delacour-Weasley from the Triwizard Tournament; he pointed out some other Durmstrang and Beauxbatons graduates in the audience. He looked quite the young Pureblood grandee, until Kingsley read out the names of the Knights of the Order of Merlin, First Class, and he cheered and threw his hat in the air like a schoolboy when Hermione Granger's name was called.

Andromeda was taken aback at how young the four of them looked; well, they _are_ young. Hermione is the oldest of them and she's only eighteen, which is young even for a soldier. And skinny: even Neville Longbottom, whom she remembers as a distinctly round child, looks underfed for his broad-shouldered frame, and next to him, Harry and Ron look out-and-out spindly. For all their hastily organized dress robes, washed faces and carefully tamed hair, the four of them look like grubby urchins unexpectedly rewarded for serious mischief.

The fifth First Class award was posthumous, to Albus Dumbledore, and it was placed on his white marble tomb by Kingsley himself.

There was a brief speech, a sort of relay of remarks starting with Harry who talked about the heroic dead who had ensured the victory, and then Hermione who emphasized that they owed the victory to many people's talents, and Ron, who wanted to thank his parents and all of the parents and teachers who had come to the aid of their children, and last Neville, who said only "Dumbledore's Army!" which raised an answering shout from the audience.

Then there was the reading of the Second Class awards, which covered most of the Hogwarts faculty as well as Aberforth Dumbledore, and the Third Class awards, which included most of the rest of the Order, living and dead, as well as the Hogwarts resistance, the group calling itself Dumbledore's Army. Nymphadora told her that it had started as a Defense study group when Dolores Umbridge had banned practical study of the subject. Not bad for a study group, she thought.

Kingsley called the roll of the living, and one by one the surviving fighters walked up to the platform to receive their decorations. Then he called the names of those who had given their lives in the fight, either in the battle or in the resistance preceding, and the names of the relatives or friends who were receiving the decoration by proxy. Andromeda noticed that it was Harry who received the decoration for Severus Snape (Order of Merlin, Third Class).

Andromeda walked to the stage to receive the decorations for Nymphadora and Remus, and that's when Teddy decided to start howling. It had been a long day, and he had been looking around curiously at all of the strangers; he'd even made a grab for Viktor Krum's beard for all he was a stranger and Teddy didn't usually like strange men. But now was the moment that he decided that he'd had enough and let loose with an operatic yowl of indignation. Andromeda soldiered ahead, and when she got to the platform, Harry took Teddy out of her arms and held him while Kingsley gave her the two medallions on their shining ribbons.

When she returned to her seat, Viktor Krum was looking at her with interested curiosity. "Harry is Teddy's godfather," she explained.

He nodded. "Courage on all sides of the family," he said. "He will be a brave boy."

"I hope the times won't require it," she said in reply, and then sighed. "Though I'm afraid they will."

When she finally returned home, it was with the thought of a good night's sleep to be followed by a nice lie-in the next morning. The full moon was just rising over the back garden, lighting the little patch of asphalt where Ted used to spread out the machine parts and tinker with his motorbike. She had changed Teddy's nappy, laughing as she remembered Nymphadora posing the famous question, "Where do Vanished objects go?" and answering it herself, "Only Ravenclaws know, but wherever it is, there's a lot of baby poo there." (She's not sure if the quip were original with Nymphadora or if it were a standard joke in Hufflepuff.)

That's how she's been remembering her: a laugh and a pang. Except for that dark passage when she was courting Remus, Nymphadora was the most cheerful person she'd ever met. She had all of her father's temperament, the courage that was so effortless that it looked like ordinary good cheer, and his irreverence. Kingsley told her that Nymphadora even joked with—and about—the fearsome Mad-Eye Moody, and lived to tell the tale. Had Moody eating out of her hand, if truth be told.

Well, yes, and except that her training as an Auror had curbed her indiscretion somewhat, she had Ted's tendency to repeat things that shouldn't be repeated. The problem with Ted was that he was far too quotable. When Andromeda got blasted off the Black family tapestry, Ted had shrugged, but he'd already come up with nicknames for every one of the in-laws who wouldn't speak to him as the Muggle-born arriviste. His two unwilling brothers-in-law, Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange, had long since been demoted to Lucky and Ralph, and he never referred to them otherwise in her hearing. Lucius' son Draco, who looked like a small copy of him nearly from infancy, got dubbed The Clone. Bellatrix was Crazy B, and Narcissa was The Princess.

So it did in fact come to pass the year before last, that Nymphadora stopped in from patrol duty at Hogwarts and told her that she'd seen the Clone and he was looking peaky, not that you could really tell when he'd never had much in the way of color to start with. No wonder, since Lucky wasn't living up to his name, having landed his Pureblood arse in Azkaban after the ruckus at the Department of Mysteries, and the Clone was doubtless feeling the loss of prestige.

Well, Lucius the Lucky was back there once more, and Narcissa with him. Andromeda had received the most curious note—well, the first note in years—from Narcissa, overlaid with the sigil of the Azkaban censor. She settled Teddy in his cot, and stopped in front of the window to unfold the note and look at it once more in the brilliant moonlight. Almost certainly it was her thought about Lucius and Narcissa that saved her life, and Teddy's, because as she looked up from the parchment, she caught a dark movement at the edge of the garden. The neighbors' cat, she thought—

Except much too large for a cat. The profile, what she could see of it, looked more like a dog. Only much larger… and there was more than one.

Every hair on her body stood on end. She'd left the back door unlocked. Not a moment later, she heard the scratching and then the splintering, and then the soft growling just outside the half-open door of the nursery.

She grabbed Teddy and Apparated to the front room of the Three Broomsticks just as the first of the werewolves nosed in through the door of the nursery (no time for the Floo, and it was in the other room). The Three Broomsticks was mostly empty, so she left a few Knuts on the mantelpiece as she took a handful of the pub's stock of Floo powder and went on to the Ministry.

In spite of her resolution, she ended up going to Kingsley's party after all, as the first messenger to bring news of the werewolf attacks that hit Hogsmeade, Ottery St. Catchpole, and the wizarding enclaves in suburban London in the first full moon of the post-war. Fenrir Greyback was dead, but his community organizing efforts among Britain's werewolf population were still bearing fruit.

Like many such messengers who alone escaped to tell the tale, she told her news in the clothes she stood up in, and little else besides the crying baby on her arm. She slept that night at Shell Cottage, the best-defended safe house of the Order. In the morning, Bill and Fleur accompanied her back to the house. The werewolves had torn up everything that had a human scent on it and sprayed their territory in the usual way, so it was some hours of charms, _Reparo_ and _Scourgify _not the least of it, before the place was habitable again. To Andromeda's annoyance, it also appeared that they'd found the meat in the icebox, and made short work of it.

There followed a family council—the Weasleys proper, Harry, and Hermione—at the end of which it was decided that Andromeda could come to live at the Burrow until the werewolf threat was resolved. Which is how she came to be sitting in Molly's kitchen, nursing Teddy Lupin and reading the note from her sister Narcissa Malfoy nee Black—the first communication that she'd had from her in sixteen years.

It was a simple condolence note on the loss of her husband, daughter, and son-in-law, in the polite and conventional language that covers all cases. The note was exceptional only because her two sisters had sworn to kill those very people. Well, Bellatrix had sworn death on them, and where Bella went, Cissy followed. It always had been that way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

**Posting schedule:** I am posting the first two chapters of _In Which the Princess Rescues the Dragon_ at the end of November 2009. Chapters will be posted weekly thereafter.

***

The Burrow is crowded at breakfast. Molly is a dab hand at housekeeping charms of all kinds, but Andromeda feels impelled as a guest to pitch in with prep, since the gathering includes nearly all of the Weasley children, with the addition of herself, Teddy, Harry, Hermione, and Harry's school friends Luna and Dean, who have been staying at Shell Cottage. Charlie Weasley has been staying on as a favor to Bill, some business to do with Gringotts and retrieving a dragon. Andromeda isn't sure she heard that right, but it's hard to make out much of anything in the clamor that is a meal at the Burrow.

Molly is in her glory, since she loves a full house, and the war is over—well, except for this last bit with the werewolves, which she's sure is an isolated incident. It will be no time before the Aurors have that sorted and life can return to normal. Andromeda looks up at the clock over the kitchen sink to see that none of the hands point at Mortal Peril, which is the chief reason for Molly's elation.

To Andromeda's astonishment, Molly and Arthur appear to be in the midst of a second honeymoon. She makes eyes at him at the breakfast table and talks about their elopement during the First War with Voldemort.

The other day, Andromeda was sitting in the yard feeding the chickens, when she saw them sneak into Arthur's shed, the one where he does his puttering with Muggle things, and emerge about an hour later looking flushed and ruffled. Snogging like school kids in there, no doubt.

Luna looked up and said, "Oh, they're in love." Dean, who was standing by watching them, looked flustered. Luna has been showing Dean how to feed the chickens, and collect their eggs, as well as other chores to do with the rearing of chickens. He's a Muggle-born city boy, a Londoner, and his only previous dealings with chickens and eggs were in their perfected form as breakfast or dinner. They're an odd pair, she with her pale skin and wide blue eyes and long flaxen hair, he tall and gangly with dark skin and short hair the texture of lambswool. When they're not doing farm chores, they trot off together somewhere with sketchbooks.

Molly told her that they've gotten to be quite good friends while staying at Shell Cottage with Bill and Fleur. Ron and Hermione enlarged on that theme: they were recovering from their imprisonment in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, in Luna's case, a good four months. Hermione tells her that Fleur is an absolute genius at healing spells, not to mention the gentle art of feeding-up; both of her patients were well enough by May to acquit themselves with honor at the Battle of Hogwarts. Luna, Hermione and Ginny between the three of them took on Bellatrix and held her at bay until Molly stepped in and dueled her to the death.

Score one for the homebodies, Andromeda thought. Not to mention the mother tigers. Molly isn't to be underestimated if you touch her children. That protectiveness goes both ways, of course. Nymphadora and Andromeda had the misfortune to hear of Ted's death on the clandestine Wizarding Wireless program 'Potterwatch,' and that was the moment that she knew that her daughter would be off to battle as soon as she was delivered of her child.

Watching Molly and Arthur is hard, because she keeps thinking of what she and Ted would have been doing in their place. Ted would have been talking over all of the little dramas to be seen at the ceremonies and dances and home life that had ensued in the short weeks since the war. Ted loved a good gossip while he was tinkering in the yard, or in bed with her after Nymphadora was asleep. People underestimated him because he looked like an ordinary bloke with Mugglish habits (Lily Evans had told her a bit sniffily, _lower-class_ Mugglish habits), but he was one of the most astute political observers she's ever met, and in the wizarding world, the line between personal drama and political maneuvering is so thin as to be nonexistent. That's how they had fallen in together at Hogwarts, with him asking her to explain this or that odd wizarding custom. She remembers the first time she looked at the rumpled, sleepy-looking Hufflepuff boy with the shaggy fair hair and realized that he was actually quite fanciable. The rumpled look put her in mind of a bed just vacated after lovemaking.

Which she wasn't supposed to know about at seventeen, but when your baby sister is carrying on with her all-but-official fiancé under your nose in the Slytherin common room, it's hard to miss. Later, she recalled to Ted that Lucius Malfoy managed to look icy and disdainful even with his girlfriend's hand up his robes. More things she wished she hadn't walked in on. Even twenty years later, it still gave her a little shiver of revulsion, because she'd never liked Lucius and it was oddly repellent to think of her sister doing that with him. Ted laughed, and said something about Lucky getting lucky, yet again, in spite of himself, and he wasn't surprised that the git didn't even look properly appreciative when the Princess was bringing him off, since he probably figured he was entitled to that along with worship in a more general sense. Then Ted gave her a big warm kiss and a squeeze on the bum and said that _he,_ on the other hand, was more than appreciative…

She and Ted had to sneak around, since they were in different Houses and she already knew that the match would be far from approved. On the other hand, her mother approved of Lucius, rather excessively in fact, and was happy to turn a blind eye to him and Narcissa having long unsupervised _conversations_ in the little room off the ballroom, or taking _long walks_—or _long broom rides. _(Andromeda still can't believe her mother didn't know the current Hogwarts translation of that locution.) Not that it mattered from the point of legal propriety, because the marriage contract was signed before they were out of Hogwarts, in fact in Narcissa's fourth year. How they managed that one with the Ministry, given that both parties were minors, had much to do with Druella Black and Abraxas Malfoy being of the same mind on the question and having more than enough pull in the correct quarters. Questions were not asked when it came to an alliance between two such ancient and respectable Pureblood lines.

Which brings her back again to the note folded in the pocket of her robes. Cissy and Lucius in Azkaban. Not a picture it's easy to imagine, given how soigné and supercilious the two of them have always been. Interned under the state of emergency, it said in the _Prophet._ Along with Luna's father Xenophilius, it appears. The note didn't say anything about the expectation of a reply, but she can't help thinking that there ought to be something she should say, if nothing else to acknowledge that yes, she does remember that she has a sister. Bellatrix, of course, hadn't been her sister these last twenty years and more, and seems to have become more inhuman with the years—not that twelve years in Azkaban with the Dementors helped her case, of course.

She remembers the grave and courteous nod that Neville Longbottom gave her on the platform at the Order of Merlin awards ceremony, notwithstanding she looks just like the sister who tortured his parents into insanity. Some people can tell the difference between her and Bella, at least. And now, quite fortunately, Bella is dead. If it were anyone else, she'd feel guilty at the coldness of the thought, but it's more a matter of a leaden worry being lifted from her soul after three years of nearly constant apprehension. Bella and her Dark Lord, both of them gone in the same day, thank Merlin. The warmth of her feeling toward her late sister was not increased by learning that Bella had been given orders to "prune the family tree," and had gone forth quite deliberately to do just that. It's not clear who Ted's killer was, but multiple witnesses attest to Bellatrix Lestrange having killed both Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin. Bella would have killed Teddy, too, if she could have gotten her hands on him.

Well, now she and Teddy are safe, or that's what everyone is saying.

Except for the extrajudicial score-settling, which seems to have set in within a week or two of the Battle of Hogwarts. Not that it's being covered in the _Prophet,_ of course—that rag's always been dead useless. Ted used to say you'd get as much sense from the _Daily Mail,_ and that Rita Skeeter could go to work for them with only the slightest of Muggle retrofits. That was hilariously funny, of course, given that Rita prides herself on her impeccable Pureblood pedigree.

No, she heard about the Hogwarts situation from Ron and Hermione, who tumbled in through the Floo rather later than expected, the day that Hermione was to have been at Hogwarts talking with the Headmistress about her academic timeline. Apparently there had been three killings in Hogsmeade alone, and an unsuccessful murder attempt in Hogwarts itself, involving a gang of kids from Hufflepuff House. Hermione had been late to meet Ron at the Three Broomsticks; he'd been worried sick, and then it turned out she'd been at the Hogwarts hospital wing with Neville Longbottom and the would-be lynching victim. They'd apparently rescued him, administered first aid, and then waited for Madam Pomfrey to come back from Hogsmeade.

As she patched it together from Ron and Hermione's conversation, Pomfrey had been coming out of the apothecary in Hogsmeade when she was hustled to the scene of the triple assault in the High Street. She had been unable to save the victims, three seventh-year students from Slytherin House. They'd been hit with a Dark curse that produced propagating razor-sharp cuts, successively cutting deeper and deeper into the body, and they died of massive blood loss. Hermione remembered all three names: Pansy Parkinson, Greg Goyle, and Blaise Zabini.

Ron was venomous about how Pansy Parkinson had deserved what she got, since she'd been ready to turn Harry over to Voldemort. Hermione was protesting that Pansy had let her mouth run away with her. She was _scared,_ she said, and she was a stupid cow, always had been, but that didn't mean that she deserved to be sliced to bloody shreds in the Hogsmeade High Street.

But what had Ron in an absolute lather was that Hermione had been late to meet him, producing all sorts of nightmarish worries, because she'd been attending to the fourth victim, whom she ought to have left to his fate. Andromeda is a little taken aback at Ron's ferocity—he's usually hot-tempered but not vicious—until he says, "That bloody little inbred git would have left us to it, and the world's better rid of him. He sold us out twice just that night at Hogwarts, or maybe you don't remember. I suppose you wanted to make it a magical three times that Draco bloody Malfoy owes us his worthless life."

So it was her nephew, Cissy's boy, that the Hufflepuff kids had tried to kill. She waited until Ron went storming off to organize himself some dinner, because they had arrived well after the usual meal time. Then she asked Hermione about it. Ron's girlfriend could be depended on for calm and deliberation—funny, because she was Muggle-born and ought to have had more animus about the Clone than Ron did. Apparently, the boy had taunted Ron since first year, using all the things his father had said about Arthur Weasley, but all he could manage in Hermione's case was the epithet 'mudblood' and stupid remarks about her hair and her teeth, which Hermione shrugged off as generic.

Hermione explained that the children in the gang had been orphaned by the Death Eaters and they had set on Draco as the last seventh-year Slytherin standing, even though, by Neville's testimony, he hadn't been particularly active in the Carrows' torture regime during the last year at Hogwarts. His erstwhile pals, Crabbe and Goyle, had made a name for themselves with their sadism, and she supposed that the kids assumed that it had been under Draco's orders. Hermione's personal theory is that Draco's problem is that he's far too visible and where he hasn't made enemies by his own actions, he's inherited those of his now-dead friends. Goyle was killed that day in Hogsmeade. She's not sure if it was coincidence that both attacks happened on the same day; she actually suspects so, since the Hogwarts attack was in a very different style—a mob throwing miscellaneous hexes as well as Muggle-style physical violence, rather than a single unknown assailant who threw a Dark curse and then melted back into the Hogsmeade crowds.

Cissy would be worried sick if she knew. Andromeda still remembers the few times she's seen her sister with Draco, glimpses in Diagon Alley for the most part, and the boy always seemed younger than his age, whining and pulling on his mother's robes. The mob assault on an only son is nothing to write to an Azkaban prisoner about, even absent the Dementors. She realizes another thought later that somewhere in there she's made up her mind to write to Cissy, even though she's not sure what to say. The war is over, she supposes.

She goes up to her cubbyhole under the eaves to write the letter, which she entrusts to Ron's little owl Pigwidgeon. He only has to fly as far as London; Owl Post to Azkaban proceeds from there to the prison by a special relay through the Ministry censors. Cissy should have her letter within a day.

***


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

** *****

Except for placid Arthur and his second son Charlie, the Weasleys more than live up to the stereotype of the hot-tempered and excitable ginger. Andromeda has learned to avoid the kitchen of the Burrow except when she has to be in there for meal prep, because it seems to be the chosen arena for family battles.

In the last week, there's been a set-to between Molly and Ginny about Ginny's plans. Ginny shouted that Hogwarts isn't going to be opening as a school anytime soon, and she's going to the Harpies tryouts whether her mother likes it or not. She's had quite enough of one bully or another trying to keep her off what she loves, whether it's the twins forbidding her the broom shed or her mother trying to turn her into a hausfrau before her time. She'll get married in her own time and on her own terms—not on her mother's. And her relationship with Harry is none of her mother's bloody business, and she'd appreciate that Molly not listen at keyholes.

Then George and Percy had it out about Percy's wartime record and Fred's death, which was more than she could stand to hear since it had been Bella who killed Fred, not Percy. Andromeda stopped the chopping knives in their task and fled to the yard with Teddy. She could hear their voices through the open kitchen window, until it actually spilled out into the yard, with George yelling at Percy about how it was all his bloody fault, the whole thing, and if he'd had some family feeling he might not have two brothers mutilated and the other dead, and he was going back to the shop to do the accounts and he'd thank Percy to make himself scarce when he returned, because the sight of traitors at the dinner table made him sick. George stormed down the back steps and spun mid-stride to Apparate back to Hogsmeade. Andromeda wondered if he'd splinched himself on arrival, but took a deep breath and remembered that these were Molly's children, not hers, and in any case they were grown men and wouldn't hear her even if she did try to say something. George, she was well aware, ignored her as a mere female.

Percy came out and sat down unsteadily on the back steps, his face dead white. He looked as if he were going to be sick. His usually impeccable hair was tousled and his glasses askew on his nose; Andromeda wondered if George had laid hands on him. Hermione told him that the twins formerly ganged up on Percy, sometimes physically as well as verbally. Andromeda considers it fairly disgraceful for them to be brawling like that in their twenties, but she supposes she doesn't have much room to talk, since sibling brawls actually descended to murder in the case of her and her sisters.

Charlie is the exception to the rule. He was a great friend of Nymphadora's when the two were at Hogwarts together; his was the first name she remembers from her daughter's letters home. They both loved Care of Magical Creatures and flying lessons. How the two of them met, given that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff didn't have classes together, is still obscure to her, but they seem to have found each other by the pure gravitation of affinity. Molly and Andromeda are cousins by marriage, but the beginning of their true affiliation as adults was their children's mutual fascination. Charlie was nearly as easygoing as Nymphadora and Ted; he frequently visited them in the holidays. At the end of each of those visits, Ted would smile indulgently and give Charlie some disused machine parts to take home to Arthur. Ted's tinkering was pure Muggle; he was amused by Arthur's hybrid approach.

After graduation, they went very separate ways. Charlie went off to Rumania to become a dragon-keeper, which Nymphadora explained by way of his desire for peace and quiet. Anyone who hadn't seen the Weasley household would have taken that for a joke. She became an Auror for reasons obscure to her mother. Andromeda suspects, from something that Kingsley once said, that Nymphadora felt very strongly the betrayal by her cousin Sirius, during the twelve years that it was assumed that he'd sold the Potters to Voldemort. Kingsley told her that Nymphadora had lost her temper—so far as she ever did—and announced her Dark connections to the entire tea-room at the Auror Department, saying the lot of them could bloody well quit with the obscure references. Yes, the rumors were true: she was in fact Sirius Black's second cousin, Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange were her uncles by marriage, and she reckoned that knowing the Dark at such close quarters gave her an edge.

***

One night well after the dinner dishes have been cleared and washed, Charlie comes to sit with her in the kitchen. He tells her how sorry he is about Nymphadora, and oddly enough it's in front of her daughter's school friend that she first begins to weep.

He's not fussed by it, and they sit up past midnight talking about Nymphadora's crazy courage and sense of fun. People say that Charlie could have played Quidditch for England, and he says the same of Nymphadora. At Hogwarts, apparently, she resisted the prompting of her Head of House to play Seeker on the House team. Charlie says she was an absolutely brilliant Seeker in pick-up games, but had no desire to play in any kind of formal setting.

They both were free-wheeling anarchists, Nymphadora the more of the two, which to this day makes Charlie wonder why she joined the Aurors. By all accounts, she was good at it, but it's odd, given how much she hated rules.

Then Charlie says, "It's a good thing I went to Rumania, because mum was eyeing us and wanting to match-make. You know how she is."

Andromeda nods. She's already seen Molly Weasley in action, herding the young folk toward matrimony by nagging alternated with a laissez-faire program of unchaperoned evenings. Both of the young couples under her roof have consummated their relationships, she's pretty sure, and now Molly has her eye on Dean and Luna, although Andromeda can see that they're no more a couple than Charlie and Nymphadora were.

Charlie says, with the air of someone broaching a difficult subject, "You know, I'm not sure why Remus and Tonks got together." Andromeda frowns. She's had the same thought, but Charlie is the first person who seems to share her doubts.

"He was so much older," she says.

Charlie says, "No, that's not what I mean. I mean, she wasn't really into blokes." He actually pinks up a bit, and then adds, "She wasn't ready to settle down, but when she'd talk about somebody she might fancy, it always sounded like it was a girl. She wrote me a really funny letter a couple of years ago about how she was finally scoring dividends from the Auror uniform, because a couple of Hogwarts girls looked to have a crush on her." He drops his voice to a whisper. "She didn't say right out, but I think one of them was my sister. And the other was Ron's Hermione."

Andromeda takes a deep breath. She'd suspected as much about Nymphadora's inclinations, and she wonders if Ted had as well. He always seemed quite calm about her not bringing boys home, as if it hadn't even crossed his mind to expect such a thing. They never really discussed it… because the subject never came up, she supposes. And now it's rather too late all around.

Charlie says, "Her letters were really strange the last year or two. She didn't sound like herself at all. She kept talking about having tea with mum, and wanting to get married, and it was clear there was somebody she had in mind. She'd never been on about it before."

Andromeda hugs herself, feeling chilled in spite of the mild early-June evening. "Not herself at all," she repeats.

Charlie says, "Hardly anyone remembers, but mum has ten NEWTs. O's in Defense, Potions, Charms and Transfiguration. Quite good enough marks to have been an Auror herself. And she was _scary _good with Potions."

He doesn't spell it out, but she can connect the dots.

***

Charlie's stay is coming to an end toward the first week in June, since his business for Gringotts is concluded and he's plainly feeling stir-crazy staying with his parents. He doesn't want to impose on Bill and Fleur; they're trying to have a private life in spite of running a safe house and field hospital for the Order this last year. Mr. Ollivander is still living there, finishing his recovery and keeping out of the public eye. Luna and Dean go up from time to time to visit him, and Andromeda learns that Ollivander has been trying to talk Luna into becoming his apprentice as a wand-maker.

That's five people in a house built for two and the occasional casual guest. Charlie figures that's enough of a crowd. That doesn't even include the young people who visit Bill almost weekly, some of the Dumbledore's Army veterans wounded by Greyback in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Molly is reminding Charlie of why he left home in the first place, and there are multiple altercations brewing between his siblings and, in the case of Ron, their significant others. There's been some kind of meeting up at Shell Cottage to do with Gringotts; Bill's superiors apparently delegated him to deliver some bad news. Harry, Ron, and Hermione went up there and returned late in the evening with grim expressions, and Ron was conspicuously turning a cold shoulder to Hermione.

Hermione is ill and has been for some time. Andromeda notices that she hasn't seen Crookshanks stalking the gnomes in a while, and asks; Hermione tells her that Neville is looking after him at Hogwarts.

Then there's the afternoon that Ron and Hermione have an argument in the garden, and the garden wall dissolves into rubble behind them. Hermione goes dead white and does a quick series of charms to restore it.

Andromeda knows enough to recognize it: wild magic. Now she understands a snippet of argument she overheard weeks ago: the first instance was a spontaneous Killing Curse, which Hermione managed to halt before it took shape. More recently, Ginny has complained about waking up two days in a row with the curtains on fire, saying that it's annoying her enough that she wants to switch rooms, except there's no place else to sleep—yet another reason she can't wait till she and Harry can get a place of their own.

Apparently, Hermione sent Crookshanks away so she wouldn't harm him in her sleep.

***

The morning of the fifth of June, Molly is fuming about Hermione asking her for something from the garden. Andromeda, who's reacquired the knack of being a good listener (a survival trait that stood her in good stead as the middle Black sister), waits for Molly to spell it out, as she knows she will. Molly indignantly declares that she'd thought Hermione was a good girl, not some scarlet hussy… though she's been selfish and self-absorbed lately, so Molly has been having doubts. There's been far too much backing and forthing to St. Mungo's and Hogwarts, and too much arguing with Ron and not enough attention to cooking and laundry. She has no doubt that the girl will go sneaking behind her back to some other connection, since in particular she has Neville Longbottom wrapped around her little finger, but a witch has to make a stand for what is right and proper.

Finally Molly calms down enough to tell her what plant Hermione requested, and on what timeline: before the full moon. Of course. It's the key ingredient in what witches commonly call the Vile Purple Potion, the very same contraceptive potion she took every month after she and Ted decided that Nymphadora was offspring enough. It had been barely within their means to keep chaos in check with her in the house, making the addition of siblings quite out of the question.

She's pleased to see that Hermione's conduct in her private life is every bit as prudent as her war record. She says as much to Molly, that Hermione is a sensible girl, and she's come to rate sensible over 'good,' whatever that means when it comes to having children in wartime.

She doesn't mention that she saw Ginny harvesting that very plant the other day, likely for the same reason. Hermione erred in making a forthright request. The rule of the Weasley children seems to be "Don't ask, don't tell, and in particular don't tell mum."

Molly bristles and reminds her that both of her younger children were born at the height of hostilities during the last war, Ginny mere months before Voldemort's mishap with two-year-old Harry ended the first round of terror. In any case, the war is over and it's high time for the young folk to settle down and get respectable.

Andromeda points out that Hermione doesn't appear to be ready to settle down, any more than Nymphadora was. She still doesn't understand why Nymphadora did what she did, married while the war was gathering force and then had a child, but she's now bearing the consequences of her daughter's actions. Had it been ordinary times, she'd suspect Nymphadora of being on Amortentia, but it wasn't ordinary times at all. War makes people crazy.

Molly answers that with a long silence and an appraising look. For a brief plummeting moment, Andromeda is afraid that she's gone too far. But this is Molly Weasley nee Prewett, not Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black. At worst it's going to be a tongue-lashing and the request that she move out. She need not dread Cruciatus.

But Molly doesn't say anything; she looks around the garden, and then turns to go back into the house.

***

Later that day, an unknown owl comes swooping down as she's feeding the chickens. It lands on her shoulder, and she has to walk into the kitchen to fetch the owl treats. As soon as she unties the message from the owl's leg, it goes winging off again. There are two seals on the letter, one of which is that of the Ministry; the second is the black seal of the Azkaban post. She shudders, remembering the recent headline in the _Prophet _about the return of the Dementors.

The letter is from Cissy, and it's quite coherent—well, that _had_ been her first worry, hadn't it? She remembers what Sirius looked like when she saw him for the first time after his years in Azkaban. He still looked wild-eyed, and he was dosing himself with firewhiskey.

No, from the look of the hand—copperplate precise, with a steely spring to the flourish of the 'y' in 'Malfoy,'—Cissy is as she ever was: pretty and graceful with an unbendable will. The letter still reads quite a bit like a pattern from an ancient etiquette book; the only time it feels personal is that last little bit inquiring about Teddy's health. Cissy loved babies, she remembers.

Which must have made some of the terms of her marriage contract rather much to bear, but she won't think about that. She does remember the last time she saw Cissy face to face, which was that picnic in the summer of 1982. Unexpectedly, her sister had shown up incognito, wrapped up in the dowdiest Muggle costume she'd ever seen. She was wearing a long loose skirt and a shawl and a kerchief that shaded her face rather like a cowl, like a schoolgirl trying to play someone's Russian peasant grandmother. In a sort of sling over her shoulder she carried a wriggling two-year-old boy. Lucius' precious Heir, apparently: Draco Abraxas Malfoy, which seemed rather a lot of name for a wiggly little pink morsel with an excessively long blond fringe.

Nymphadora immediately annexed him and carried him away for rides on her broom, to his immense delight, at least to judge from the shrieks he emitted and the rather spectacular tantrum he threw when she returned him to his mother. Nonetheless, Nymphadora thought he was cute and wanted to bring him home. Previously she'd begged for a pet dragon and a Blast-Ended Skrewt, and likely she saw a better chance with something that didn't actively set things on fire.

She begged Cissy to let her borrow him, at least, if she couldn't keep him. Cissy managed to turn her down without breaking her heart, which gave Andromeda a brief moment of admiration for the bright side of her sister's particular brand of Slytherin cleverness.

Andromeda smiles at the picture of the impossible world in which her daughter and Cissy's son had grown up together. Well, for one thing, he likely wouldn't have ended as the perfect spoiled terror that Ron and Harry described, because Ted wouldn't have stood that for a minute. As well, Nymphadora would have put him rather firmly in his place, because she didn't so much deflate pretension as completely ignore it, and she might have had leverage that even Ted didn't command.

At two years old, Draco had been no more appalling than any other two-year-old child, and he had immediately formed an attachment to his cousin. The rest of the afternoon, he'd toddled after her, and she'd amused him by trying out different faces, which made him squeal with delight. Andromeda doubts he even remembers it, but Nymphadora did. For months after, she asked when they were bringing back the little boy so that she could play with him.

Never, the answer was. Cissy had come to the picnic because this was the last moment when she could show off her child to her sister. Bella was in Azkaban, Lucius didn't know, and Draco didn't talk yet, so he wasn't able to betray her. Ted and Andromeda were discreet as well, except for the photos Ted snapped, and she's not sure that Nymphadora ever actually realized that the little boy and his mother had been The Clone and The Princess, the figures of fun from Ted's stories.

Andromeda and Cissy had crossed paths thereafter, as was impossible to avoid in the tiny world of Diagon Alley, but Cissy steadfastly ignored her. Lucius would catch her eye, for the express purpose of ensuring that she _saw_ the contempt in which he held her as a blood traitor. It was comic and disturbing at the same time to watch their little boy imitate his father's haughty gait and disdainful expression. When Ted explained to her what a clone was—an exact genetic copy, an artificial twin—she decided that was just the word for her nephew, as he swept majestically along in his father's wake, wearing a miniature version of the same traditional dress robes and looking down his little pointed nose at the lower orders.

Ah yes, and there's a hint in the letter, too. Cissy writes that she's had letters from Draco but she isn't sure that he's telling her everything he might about the situation at Hogwarts. There's a line excised from the letter, where she must have stepped outside the bounds of the acceptable. Andromeda imagines Cissy had written something to the effect that one can't rely on what's printed in the _Prophet._

Oh yes, and Cissy adds that Lucius is in good health, though of course he's staying in separate accommodations from her. _Separate accommodations,_ indeed. She's writing this from a slimy cell in Azkaban and she's speaking of it as if they were in a resort in the South of France and Lucius had a separate suite of rooms in their villa facing the Mediterranean.

Cissy writes that she looks forward to her sister's next letter.

Andromeda sighs. It appears that she has a correspondent in Azkaban.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

By June, there's a curfew around full moon, during which the adults at the Burrow do patrols around the perimeter. The defenses of the Burrow were proof against all but the Death Eaters at full strength, but the Ministry is not sure how much training Greyback's irregulars received during their alliance with Voldemort. On the night of June tenth, Andromeda is on duty with Percy between midnight and four a.m.; Harry and Ginny came in from their patrol from moonrise to midnight and took over her duties at Teddy's bedside. He sleeps through the night, for the most part, though this night he seems to have picked up on the excitement among the adults and is waking every few hours.

Percy is restless and unhappy, she can tell. She's watching the shadows, because she knows that the werewolves like to lurk there, in the sharp darkness created by the brilliant moonlight, before massing for attack. She can feel her patrol partner's distraction. She knows that he gets up very early to leave for work at the Ministry and does not come home until late; it's not clear to her if it's the conflict with George, the considerable work load at the Ministry, or something else.

Luckily, she is paying attention when the first movement comes around three a.m., a barely visible shift in the dappled shadows outside the hedgerow. She tugs Percy's sleeve and points. Silently they watch as six dark outlines take shape out of the dark, slink up to the edge of the defenses, try them and are thrown back.

It's Percy who throws a volley of stunning spells and knocks out all six of them, after which she casts Incarcerus and binds them.

At the change of the guard at four a.m., Arthur and Luna take over guard duties. They leave the bound werewolves outside the defenses, where a pre-dawn patrol from Ottery St. Catchpole finds them and slashes their throats with silver knives before either Arthur or Luna can intervene.

Arthur tells the household over breakfast that the Ministry had issued no policy on the treatment of prisoners, since this wasn't an official war. He describes with merciful brevity the impromptu burial of the six underfed adolescents whose remains appeared when the vulpine corpses reverted to human form at moonset. He's prepared a report on it already, though this doesn't bode well.

***

Molly Weasley has been sharp with Hermione for some days now, since her absence at Hogwarts over the full moon period on unspecified business. Andromeda has a guess at that business, given that the Vile Purple Potion is prepared at the full moon, and Molly had earlier been fuming about Hermione going to another connection, which is likely Neville Longbottom at the Hogwarts greenhouses. There's also been an article in the _Prophet_ mentioning Hermione's name in connection with the War Crimes Commission, specifically her outburst against the internment of war crimes suspects in Azkaban Prison, juxtaposed with speculation about her torture at Malfoy Manor. Rita Skeeter, of course, who seems dead set to discredit her as an unstable Muggle-born who doesn't understand the wizarding way of life and the necessity of meeting the Unforgivables with stern punishment.

The article also contains a reiteration of previous unflattering commentary about the Shacklebolt Ministry's handling of the werewolf problem. Skeeter seems to be siding with those who want a war of annihilation against the werewolf packs, coupled with stern measures against those werewolves still free in the population. Amazingly stupid, of course, and Andromeda can still hear Remus' remarks on that, how very difficult it had been to argue with his fellows against Greyback's blandishments, given how ill-treated they had been by the Ministry and the wizarding world at large. Rita's nothing more than a mouthpiece, of course. Previously, she answered to Andromeda's brother-in-law, and now she seems to be taking a rather different tack on the Pureblood agenda, by attacking the effectiveness of the new, mixed-blood regime. What's clear enough is that now that Lucius is no longer a power, his former allies have decided he's a liability. His last-minute defection (or desertion) from the cause doesn't help matters, she's sure.

She doesn't know if Cissy sees the _Prophet_ at Azkaban. It's ironic that her sister and brother-in-law are actually being defended by one of their victims, if Rita Skeeter quoted Hermione's remarks correctly. She writes Cissy a carefully neutral letter, thinking as always about the Ministry censors. No mention of the werewolves, of course, given that Greyback was originally Lucius' creature. No mention either of the undercurrents in the household, the tensions between Harry, Hermione, and Ron—or, to be more accurate, between Hermione on the one hand and Ron and Harry on the other. Instead, she talks about Teddy's progress, his eating and sleeping habits, and her gratitude for the assistance of her grandson's godparents, whom she doesn't name. Harry was named godfather, but Ginny has quietly stepped into the role of godmother.

Harry and Ron just began Auror training; since then, more than once in the last week, Ginny has gotten up in the night to take Teddy for walks as he cries; during the day, she holds him while Andromeda does her necessary work. Now, as she's writing this letter, she looks up briefly to see Ginny silhouetted against the light from the garden, as she sings to Teddy and points out birds in the garden. He's not old enough yet to understand her words, but he does understand that someone is holding him and paying attention to him. Ginny Weasley. Another name not to mention to Cissy, given the well-known animosity between Lucius and Arthur. Only "Teddy's godmother," mentioned in passing—that's safe enough—who's not actually the godmother but the fiancée of the godfather.

There's no question but that Teddy is a wizard, either, and she mentions that because she's already given it away; Teddy, like his mother, is a Metamorphmagus, and his transformations are already evident as he makes new faces—literally—to suit each mood. She remembers her initial puzzlement at Nymphadora's changes, given how rare the gift is, until the presiding Healer at St. Mungo's told her in so many words what her daughter was. More things they never told us at home, she thinks with some bitterness, that marrying outside the tight circle of acceptable Pureblood families might reap unexpected benefits for the children. Of course, Teddy will be a handful once he's walking and talking. Even at the crawling and gurgling stage, Nymphadora had been trouble; her disposition was sunny but not placid, and her wild magic followed fast on the heels of desire and even whim. Andromeda was making use of contraceptive charms before the child was weaned, and the Vile Purple Potion thereafter, lest she have two such children to juggle.

Cissy loves babies, of course, and she asked for news of Teddy. Andromeda remembers her sister's first pregnancy—the child who was actually conceived before she was out of Hogwarts, so that Andromeda was a witness to the morning sickness that took Cissy on the eve of the NEWTs—and the silence thereafter. A miscarriage or a Squib, she's not sure which, and she certainly knows Pureblood ways, so she assumes there were more such, before she bore Draco nearly ten years later. Enough, then, about Teddy, and on to a description of the garden burgeoning as the season climbs toward midsummer. Cissy loves gardens, too, and growing things, and she's never been to the Burrow so she won't recognize it, only that Andromeda is staying in a wizarding household somewhere in the English countryside. The Owl Post relay to Azkaban removes the addresses of prisoners' correspondents, and the censor takes care of any geographic references in the letters, so Cissy knows only that she's writing to Andromeda Tonks, wherever she is.

Small talk. It's all small talk, except that they haven't spoken in sixteen years. The one exception, at that picnic in 1982, was largely a matter of Cissy stepping forward to say, "Look, I have a fine child too, and he's a wizard." They did talk at that picnic, and their conversation was much as it is here, gardens and babies. Of course the garden at the Manor overshadows anything Ted and Andromeda ever had, but Cissy's baby was already overshadowed by having arrived seven years after Andromeda's, and he may have been a wizard but he was not a Metamorphmagus. Cissy prattled about his beauty and his talent, but all Andromeda could see was a fairly ordinary child who was already showing signs of becoming spoiled.

She writes, in the final lines of her letter, that she hopes her sister is well. Hesitates. Cissy doted on Lucius before she had a child, so in all courtesy she ought to remember that her sister has a husband, and send him her… regards. That's about all she can manage. "Love" or even "greetings" would be hypocritical; she has no love for Lucius and can't imagine greeting him, given that he's cut her dead every time he's met her in Diagon Alley for the last sixteen years. And, if not one of Bella's friends, he was certainly on the same side, and he shared Bella's belief that blood traitors should be reminded of their treason. The only difference was that Bella's notion of a reminder was somewhat more forcible.

She finishes the letter, seals it, and addresses it. She'll need to borrow an Owl, of course, probably Ron's. Ginny tells her that Ron is upstairs with Hermione, and she might want to knock.

As she reaches the top of the stairs outside Ron's room, the door flies open and Ron comes storming out, unseeing, and bumps into her, knocking her against the wall. He's flustered and red in the face, but he does have the presence of mind to apologize. She stammers that she was just wanting to borrow his owl, if that isn't imposing; she has a letter to send to London. To the Ministry.

"No problem," he says. "Pig will be happy for the exercise." Andromeda knows that Ron isn't much of a correspondent, especially now that his best mates are living in the same household. Charlie is the only one he writes to; Bill he visits by Floo.

He clatters down the stairs. A minute or so later, Hermione emerges, white-faced, with her face set in dry-eyed agony. Something dreadful just happened, perhaps the culmination of the tension that's been building over the last weeks. Hermione doesn't acknowledge her, but walks slowly down the stairs, her shoulders squared in immovable tension and her head held defiantly high.

***

Something dreadful did indeed happen, but its nature is only hinted at. Hermione shows up to dinner, in fact helps Andromeda with prep, but she sits silent, and Molly snipes about those who can't be troubled to pull their own weight or to contribute in kind, and who insist on making a spectacle of themselves.

Ron is ignoring Hermione; Harry is uneasy but doesn't meet her eyes either. Percy is looking at her, and the expression on his face is sympathetic pain.

Hermione picks at her food, and defiantly ignores all of them, but before dessert, Molly feels impelled to say something about outsiders who ought to be more grateful, and Hermione gets up and leaves the table.

The next morning, Hermione rises early, with Percy in fact, to leave for her new job at the Ministry. Andromeda comes in as she's saying, "I'll be leaving, you know. It won't be possible to stay." Percy looks disappointed, and then quickly masters his expression to neutral concern.

***

Two days later, she moves to Grimmauld Place. The household is in an uproar, and Molly is making remarks about spoiled children who won't stay to face the music, but Andromeda can't help noticing a certain satisfaction on her face.

Harry takes Andromeda aside and asks her if she'll check on Hermione there, because it's really no place to sleep alone. She nods. It's not really practical to refuse, of course, given that Harry is contributing to her upkeep and Teddy's, however delicately he doesn't mention that. In any case, there are closets to be cleared out, she says. She's been putting off the task, and maybe it will be easier with someone else in the house.

She waits a few days before going. It really wasn't something she looked forward to.

In the meantime, there's an article in the _Prophet _about how the detainees in Azkaban have been released to house arrest—no doubt with the exception of those who went mad in the first weeks of imprisonment. That's not mentioned in the article; anyone who knows Azkaban even by reputation can fill that in for themselves. This puts Andromeda in a bit of a quandary; she'll be able to write to Cissy at the Manor, but no doubt her letters will pass through other hands on the way. In particular, they'll be reviewed by the Aurors who will be guarding them on house arrest. She's not sure if she should tell Harry or not, as it may get back to him by another route via the Auror office.

Really, it shouldn't be a problem at all. The sisters have broached no subject more controversial than babies or gardens, and the whole correspondence could be published in full without the slightest hint of compromise on her part. In fact, it compromises Cissy more than her, since it was she who had made the first overture with an expression of condolence for the deaths of three blood traitors, or to be more precise, a Mudblood, a blood traitor, and a werewolf. So difficult to enumerate all the points of offense.

She decides for the time being that she will keep silent.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

The visit to Grimmauld Place is far more difficult than Andromeda anticipated.

Hermione has set up a sleeping and work space in one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs. She's avoided the ones that previously belonged to Sirius and Regulus, which have been left more or less as they were. The notice on Regulus' door in his ornately crabbed hand, forbidding entrance to those not granted express permission, is still in place. Andromeda shivers; if this place isn't haunted by literal ghosts, it's certainly thick with reminders. She still remembers Regulus, skinny and dark-haired, pinching his features into an expression of disdain at her and Sirius. Even before Sirius ran away and she married Ted, and they both were blasted off the tapestry, they both had been _under suspicion_ for years.

It's not a coincidence, she thinks, that Hermione's familiar is a cat. Hermione herself has something of the feline knack for making a nest in tight quarters. Small as her room is, half of it is unused; she's drawn bed and desk together into one unit, with her books and papers on one half of the desk top and her bedside accoutrements, including a mechanical alarm clock, on the other. The dim grey light from the courtyard comes in to light the work surface on the desk, although she has to supplement that with magical illumination, even by day.

Oppressive as the dusty light is, the house still feels a lot less dark than it did when she visited as a child and teenager, and Hermione tells her that's largely the doing of Molly Weasley, who led an aggressive campaign against the doxies, Boggarts, Dark artifacts, and other holdovers from the past and the years of abandonment. So it's Molly she emulates when she marches in to do battle with the remaining ghosts, those only metaphorical, that lurk in the closets of the room where Remus stayed during his tenure with the Order.

They'd had to clear the place in a hurry once Dumbledore was killed, and just as she'd expected, she found a closet with Remus' things on one side and Nymphadora's on the other. Hermione stood by as she threw them on the dusty bed to sort; well, Remus' clothes were rags. Not even usable rags. She sat down on the bed and started to cry, thinking about how much her cousin's friend had done for others and how little he'd received in turn, that all he'd left behind was these rags and tatters. And a son, yes, a son conceived with a woman who may not have been acting freely, if Charlie's suspicion was right.

And she's here because Harry sent her to check on his friend, the eighteen-year-old girl who's comforting her, offering her a handkerchief and patting her vaguely on the back, in imitation of someone else—she can tell that the gesture has been learned, and recently—and telling her that Remus was a good man and a fine teacher, the best she had at Hogwarts, and that these are only _things._ They are not Remus, and they're not his real legacy. She's actually quite fierce about that.

"And it will be _much_ easier for you once we've sorted this out," Hermione says. She then proceeds to do a quite creditable Molly Weasley impression herself, dividing the pile of threadbare clothes into those usable as rags and those past all use. She Vanishes the useless ones, and does a quick spell to cut up the others into square scraps. "Give these to Molly," she says, "she won't recognize them, and neither will you after a bit."

Nymphadora's things are much harder to deal with. They're almost all usable, and as she pulls another pile out of the dusty bureau, she sees the black tunic she gave Nymphadora when she graduated from the Auror program. She wore it only once or twice, she remembers. No. She could give these clothes to Ginny Weasley, but then she'd see them every day, and recognize them. And they still have Nymphadora's scent on them. The tears come before she's even aware of them, and she's standing in front of the bureau, her arms full of clothes that give her a living pang of her lost daughter every time she inhales.

Hermione is standing there with tears in her eyes, trying to look brisk and sensible. Andromeda shoves the armload of clothes at her. "She was more your size than mine," she says. "Take the ones in the bureau too…"

Hermione looks at her and asks if she's quite sure it's all right.

"Oh, no, it's quite all right. Better someone should use them. Only…" she doesn't know how to finish the sentence. Don't look like her when you wear them? Please, wash that scent out of them? It's not as if Hermione will be living at the Burrow; she already understands that this arrangement is permanent. Harry briefed her before she left, out of earshot of Molly and Ron. Hermione and Ron have broken up, and Molly's terms are that Hermione has to apologize for her negligence of household duties and make herself more agreeable to Ron. Knowing who and what Hermione is, that just isn't going to happen.

Hermione is putting the clothes down on the bed, and there's the purple tank top, which makes Andromeda burst out laughing. "Defending Against the Dark Arts Since 1149," the legend across the chest says. A laugh and a pang, as always when remembering Nymphadora. She says, "This was her idea and Ted's. Auror graduation T-shirts. She had them printed up in London and gave them out to all her classmates as a graduation gift. Moody absolutely had _kittens,_ read her the riot act about the Statute of Secrecy, and she told him right out that Muggles never took seriously anything printed on a T-shirt, and if he didn't believe her, he could come nightclubbing with them in Muggle London and see how much of a fuss that shirt didn't raise. The fellow at the Muggle T-shirt place had just laughed when she placed the order, so she didn't see it was going to give the Obliviators any overtime."

Hermione laughs too, and holds up the shirt in question. "Oh, that would be a nice fit on you, too," Andromeda says. "You've got the figure to carry it off, just like Nymphadora."

Hermione looks self-conscious and says something she doesn't catch, except for Ron's name.

Andromeda figures it's a little too soon to tell the girl that Ron is a thing of the past and other boys will find her more than fanciable. One of whom, she strongly suspects, is Ron's own brother. Percy, of course, not George.

***

With Hermione's departure, the pattern of tensions in the house shifts, which is not to say that peace reigns. George and Percy are at a hostile standoff, with Percy simply avoiding his brother. Percy prepares his own very early breakfast, leaves for work before anyone else is even awake (except for Andromeda, who's always been an early riser), and then dines in Diagon Alley before returning home in the late evening, when George is already ensconced in his room going over the day's accounts from the shop. Ron mutters about the perfidy of women and, in particular, what he sees as Hermione's swottiness persisting into adult life. Harry looks uncomfortable, but doesn't argue with him. Andromeda notices that Harry tries to avoid any argument where he might find himself at odds with a Weasley, Percy excepted.

The kitchen is still the scene of pitched battles between Ginny and Molly, yet again over Ginny's plans to attend the team tryouts for the Holyhead Harpies. Molly objects because Ginny hasn't finished her education, and in any case she's not of age. Ginny reminds her that she said the same thing at the battle, and didn't she hold her own against Bellatrix Lestrange? And in any case, it doesn't appear Hogwarts will be re-opening as a school any time soon, and she is not waiting around for the NEWTs to get her adult life started, thank you very much.

Well, there's talk of canceling Quidditch tryouts because of the diplomatic sanctions, Molly reminds her. Britain has been banned from the World Cup and no international matches are being played.

"No problem there," Ginny says. "I'll sign up for Auror training." She reminds her mother that she's of age on the eleventh of August and they're looking to recruit young combat veterans, NEWTs not required. She's already had an invitation, so apparently the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has more confidence in her than her own mother.

Molly launches into a speech about the ingratitude of daughters and how some attention to household matters might be more appropriate for a girl who's so eager to be an adult. This is fresh fuel to the fire, since that's an old fight, along with the inappropriateness of Ginny's interest in Quidditch.

As it happens, the argument between the Weasley mother and daughter provides a fortunate diversion when the quite recognizable Malfoy eagle owl swoops in to find Andromeda. She fumbles for an owl treat, disengages the message, and sends the bird on its way, hopefully before it's recognized.

This letter is rather more explicit, and there are no excisions from the censor. It's certainly been reviewed by the Aurors, since their scarlet seal adjoins the green, black, and silver Malfoy family seal on the parchment. Cissy reports that Lucius is still recovering from his stay in Azkaban, and she's feeling encouraged by the gains he's making. When they first were released, he was so thin, and worse, he seemed not to make sense a good part of the time.

Andromeda catches herself thinking that it was high time her sister noticed that Lucius didn't make sense, and then feels shabby for the thought. The man had already endured a year in Azkaban before this latest incarceration. If she's to trust what she's heard from Harry, their time as hosts to their Dark Lord might well count as another year of prison.

Cissy adds that she didn't realize how much she'd missed the rose garden and even Lucius' odious peacocks, which seem to have taken their absence as an opportunity to reproduce and to make serious inroads into all of the flower gardens. Maybe it just _seems_ there are more of them, because they are certainly loud enough. She can't say that she ever actually counted them.

She writes that it's very nice to come out on the terrace of a morning to drink coffee and enjoy the view. Walks in the formal gardens seem to be doing Lucius a world of good. She hopes he'll be back to his old self by the end of the summer. It's a shame that the Quidditch season has been so curtailed, because he does so love reading about the matches in the _Daily Prophet._ Of course, she doesn't let him see the front of the paper, which too often these days would be upsetting.

She hopes that Teddy is doing well, he sounds like such a lovely baby, and she hopes of course that her sister is well too, and thanks her for writing to her in Azkaban. It made a world of difference to have letters from the outside in that unpleasant place.

For the first time, Cissy signs herself "Your loving sister, Narcissa Black Malfoy."

***

**Author's note:** the purple tank top is not canon, but ought to have been. It appears in Duinn Fionn's story "The Waters of March" on skyehawke (dot) com, in a rather different context.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

The first thing that Andromeda requests in her reply is that Cissy be a little more discreet—in particular, that she send her letter by way of an owl that's not quite so recognizable. She makes it clear in this letter with whom she's staying and that the notion of a correspondence with the Malfoys will not be well received. At the moment, no one else knows with whom she's writing, and she's not quite sure how to begin persuading them.

That piece of practical politics out of the way, she proceeds to the progress report on Teddy's health and that of the garden.

***

Cissy is just as much of a politician as her husband, because her next letter contains the interesting news that Harry Potter owes her a life debt, so he might be a more than appropriate sponsor if she needs _permission_ to write to her own sister. Oh yes, she recognizes that tone—petulant and entitled. Cissy's trademark: what Cissy wants, Cissy gets. She wonders how much that principle ruled in her sister's marriage; certainly Andromeda didn't fail to notice that their son is named according to the convention of the Black family rather than the Malfoys. At least she assumes he's named after the constellation rather than the tyrant, though to judge from his performance at age two, he definitely had aspirations to rule.

This letter arrives shortly before Harry's birthday, as a result of which it's set aside as the household is caught up in preparations for the event, which proves to be an awkward combination of family picnic and state occasion.

***

At Harry's eighteenth birthday party, Kingsley Shacklebolt is in attendance, and while he's an old friend both of Arthur Weasley and of Andromeda herself, he's also Minister for Magic. The guest list includes many political invitees, so the events of the day split into two halves: the public observation, with the cutting of the cake and a brief speech from the Minister, followed by the private observation, with a pickup Quidditch game and much conversation and lounging about under the trees. Teddy is excited by the proceedings, and in fact emits a delighted shriek right in the middle of the Minister's speech, which provokes a round of laughter. Kingsley greets him afterward and asks him in a teasing tone if he means to be the next Minister, or if he only means to have a column in the _Daily Prophet,_ to which Teddy replies, "Gah." There's a photographer of course, more than one, and this is one of the moments they decide to capture.

(In the caption in the next day's _Prophet,_ Teddy is described as the orphaned son of two of the valiant dead, and his grandmother as a long-term Order member. Mercifully, no mention is made of the Malfoy, Lestrange, or Black connection, which strikes her as rather extraordinary delicacy for the _Prophet_.)

Andromeda keeps in the shade of the marquee and watches the crowds circulating. Hermione is there, though she's keeping diffidently to the edges, in the company of Luna, Dean, and Neville. Once she doffs the dress robes she brought for the public part, she's wearing Nymphadora's tank top and a pair of her black jeans; Andromeda reflects that she looks quite as fetching as she thought she might. Neville Longbottom certainly seems to think so, given the way he's looking at her; and Hermione seems to notice this, too, because it actually appears that she's flirting with him as he sits under the shade tree, leafing through a rather large book, which Dean tells her was a gift from Hermione. It was his birthday yesterday, and Dean adds that only Hermione and Luna remembered.

As they're organizing the Quidditch game, Andromeda overhears a snatch of conversation between Neville and Ginny. Ginny's surprised that Hermione agreed to play, and Neville tells her she's been getting some coaching with flying. More as a favor to him than by real inclination, he adds, because Malfoy was nagging _him_ to go flying, and Hermione offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. Ginny says something to the effect that Hermione's never been much of a flyer or a Quidditch player and she doubts she is now, and what's this about _Malfoy_… Something in her tone promises trouble.

The game is fast and hard-fought, and Hermione is actually holding up her end quite well as Chaser, until a Bludger hits her square in the face and knocks her off her broom. It's not precisely strategic, either, given that this happens after Hermione has scored a goal rather than before. It brings the game to a halt, as she's sprawled on the ground with blood all over her face, and Andromeda hears a distinctly jeering tone to some of the noise around her. Ginny and Ron and George have been drinking steadily through the afternoon, and it isn't until this private side of the party that the results become evident. The only one who's being of any use is Neville, who administers first aid—fixing Hermione's broken nose and checking for broken bones and concussion—and then helps her to her feet. When Neville has to leave, he first talks to Luna, who goes over to sit with Hermione.

Andromeda hears Ginny say to Ron later that she just proved that Hermione is no Quidditch player, and what does she mean having to do with Malfoy. The tumbler in her hand does not contain water or pumpkin juice or butterbeer but firewhiskey, and it's swirling around with a notable lack of ice. The conversation gets yet uglier after that, because her brother-in-law's family name is pure incitement to the Weasley sons. Ron launches into a long diatribe about everything that Lucius has done—to be just, most of it deserving a term in Azkaban—and how he ought to be given the Dementor's Kiss, except it's probably not worth the effort given he notably lacks a soul. And then George cuts in with a suggestion that her nephew get the same treatment, and that the whole family is worthless, Narcissa most definitely included.

At that point, Arthur grabs both of his intoxicated sons and hustles them into the house, throwing an apologetic glance backward at her.

If ever there was something to chill the heart, that was it. She thinks guiltily of the cache of letters in her little room, all of them conspicuously signed by her sister, the one whose husband and son they're ready to consign to the Dementors.

Then she sets her mind to the problem of who is going to be Cissy's ally, because she's enough of a fighter to decide that if they're all against her sister, then someone must be for her, and that someone is Andromeda Black Tonks, blood traitor.

***

On toward evening, Andromeda finds herself talking with Bill Weasley and his wife, Fleur Delacour. It's a relief, actually, after the rowdiness earlier, and Fleur is the soul of cool graciousness. Fleur's blonde beauty reminds her a bit of Cissy, except that Fleur has that characteristic Veela glow. If you look at her closely, her bone structure is nowhere near as perfect as Cissy's, but the glow more than makes up for it, as does her friendly manner. Fleur has an eye for the orphan or the loner; Andromeda saw her talking with Percy earlier, and then with Hermione—and in fact, saw her indicate delicately to Percy that he might go converse with Hermione, who was looking rather lonely sitting under one of the shade trees. Not that Percy was reluctant, once someone hinted to him. Last she saw, the two of them were in intense conversation together, no doubt about something technical, because Percy has taken some parchment out of his pocket and is drawing something on it.

Bill's scarred face is a little alarming, especially to someone who remembers how he looked before, but Andromeda finds she forgets it a few minutes into their conversation. Bill, like his younger brother Charlie, is something of an outsider in the family, without actually being an outcast like the unfortunate Percy. The first thing he does is to apologize for the bad behavior of his younger brothers. He and Fleur were talking with Hermione when Ron and George were carrying on about the Malfoys; Fleur adds that she saw Hermione wince too, for all she has more than reason for a grudge. No one's happy about the war, of course, but Bill is very tired of hearing his brothers wave the bloody shirt about his injuries, when it isn't the anti-werewolf faction in the Ministry. And he really doesn't care for how he sees Ron treating Hermione, even if she is an ex-girlfriend. It's one thing he's never liked about his mother and brothers, the way that they can cut people off without appeal, even where there are debts owed.

Andromeda remembers a hint in the article about their breakup, that there was some business to do with Gringotts. Bill says he isn't at liberty to talk about that, but suffice it to say that his family has reason to be grateful to Hermione for reasons above and beyond her war service. Speaking of gratitude, he wants her to know how much it meant to him in the days after his disfigurement to have encouraging words from Remus Lupin. He's had occasion to pass those on since the war, since there are young people from the Hogwarts resistance who were savaged by Greyback before he was taken down, and they're getting some of the same treatment that Remus got, for all they're not full werewolves.

One of them is a very wealthy young Muggle-born wizard, Justin Finch-Fletchley, who has been making donations to St. Mungo's for war veterans' rehabilitation, but is thinking as well of starting an advocacy organization for werewolves' rights. He would like to talk with her about it, since he wants to name it in honor of Remus. And since Remus has no living blood relatives, Justin thought she'd be the one to give permission. As well, there's an informal war veterans' group that meets a few times a month at Shell Cottage, if she'd be interested in attending. Justin had thought to talk to Hermione, as well, but it appears that she's extremely busy with work for the War Crimes Commission, though he's encouraged to hear that she's been lobbying for a Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Beings.

Andromeda says she'll think about it, certainly.

Fleur adds that she'd be welcome to come for a social visit, as well, with no obligation to talk business. They can't stress enough how grateful they are to Remus.

***

The view from Shell Cottage is soothing and spectacular at the same time, and through the open windows the sound of distant surf at the foot of the cliffs fills the front parlor with the presence of the sea. Fleur and Bill and preside over an afternoon tea whose refreshments reflect the decidedly hybrid cuisine of the household: French pastries, English tea, and Levantine delicacies with honey and walnuts. Justin Finch-Fletchley brings additional offerings in a white box from a posh Muggle establishment in London. Dean and Luna come in from a sketching expedition on the cliffs, talking about painting charms and their lastest museum outing in London. Dean is twitting Luna about being the first wizarding Impressionist. She's laughing and saying then they ought to organize an exhibition, oughtn't they, since the wizarding world needs some harmless scandal.

The fire flares green as one by one the young veterans arrive. Justin was already there when Andromeda arrived, but she gathers that he's one of the organizers of the group. The next is Lavender Brown, who comes direct from St. Mungo's, leaning on a cane and hobbling like a witch five times her age, and then Seamus Finnegan and Parvati Patil. Parvati's twin Padma steps through a few minutes later, presumably from another location. Padma is carrying a delicate beaded reticule out of which she produces a basket of deliciously aromatic tropical fruits, which their mother insisted on sending.

Fleur laughs at the abundance being produced, as she casts a discreet spell to double the surface area of the table in the front parlor, and remarks that English tea is being transfigured by the lot of them into a rajah's feast. She compliments Padma on the charmed reticule, and Padma replies that it's all the rage now, ever since Hermione Granger packed an entire expedition into her little blue beaded bag.

Andromeda wonders wryly if Hermione is aware that she's become a fashion plate, at least with respect to spellwork.

Padma says that it's particularly admired among the Ravenclaw alumnae, and there's been quite a flurry of speculation that Granger might have been mis-Sorted.

Lavender laughs and tells her it's too late by far, and she's just going to have to admit that the Gryffindor girls have scored once more. Though Ravenclaw has nothing to complain about—after all, they got Lovegood.

Padma says that doesn't count, because Lovegood was an honorary Gryffindor anyway, given that she and Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom were the inseparables of seventh year.

Luna and Dean are still reviewing sketchbooks in the corner, and Luna doesn't glance up.

Lavender giggles at the mention of Neville's name, and adds that she saw him at St. Mungo's this afternoon with his Gran. Visiting hours, she says. "And you know who was with him, just like a member of the family?" She waits for the pause, and says, "_Hermione Granger._"

Padma says, "Oh that's old news. He's been in love with Granger for years, and his Gran thinks the world of her."

Parvati adds with a smirk, "And now that Ron's not in the picture…"

Lavender flushes a little at the mention of Ron, and then says she thought that Neville's fancy for Hermione was just life debts from Potions class, at which they all collapse in giggles. "So do you fancy a wager? How many months until the engagement?"

Seamus says that the Three Patil Sisters are bound and determined to marry everyone off by New Year's Eve, and he'll leave Neville to their tender mercies so he has half a chance of escaping as a bachelor. Bill and Justin laugh at this, Parvati bats at his arm, and Andromeda notices that Seamus and Parvati have been sliding sidelong looks at each other through the entire conversation, and while Seamus is sitting between the two sisters on the divan, the interval between him and Parvati is quite a bit narrower. She rather suspects this is the couple they ought to be wagering on.

Meanwhile, Fleur is nodding as the teapot pours out tea, and the conversation gradually turns to gossip from the Ministry about Arthur Weasley's report on the reprisals at Ottery St. Catchpole at midsummer. It's been circulating in manuscript, but thus far, except for the handful already agitating for the Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Creatures, no one has taken an interest. Furthermore, public feeling is being fanned into fury by the _Daily Prophet's_ rather too explicit reporting of the fatalities in the early-August werewolf attack on Hogsmeade: a family with two small children that stayed behind rather than sheltering inside the walls of Hogwarts.

Bill says his sources in the Auror Department say that there are indications that the werewolf packs have gotten more aggressive in their attentions to Muggle districts, which is _not_ good news. The only positive, if you can call it that, is that they've been killing rather than recruiting, but it's only a matter of time before this turns into a Statute of Secrecy problem.

Fleur says that it hasn't spilled over into a diplomatic problem yet, but that's only because wizarding Britain is under embargo. Her parents have said that the werewolf issue is being followed with particular interest in France, given the bad memories of Grindelwald's incursions into Brittany and Normandy in the early forties. If it should cross the Channel…

Justin clears his throat and says to Bill, "Well, perhaps I ought to introduce our guest."

Bill says, "I believe you all remember our conversation last time about a werewolf rights organization, and Remus Lupin… well, this is Andromeda Tonks. Professor Lupin's mother-in-law."

Andromeda nods, adding, "And his heir of sorts, I suppose."

Bill goes around the circle and introduces them all, though she knows most of them by name. She nods politely.

Justin bows to her and says, "Madam Tonks. We're honored." With a brief gesture from Bill and Fleur, Justin takes the floor and explains the program of the proposed organization: the revocation of the Umbridge anti-werewolf legislation, a capture-and-rehabilitation program for the youth recruited by Greyback, and the mass production of Wolfsbane Potion. The eventual goal, of course, is a program to permit werewolves to live normal lives in the wizarding world, treating lycanthropy as a chronic condition. They would be honored if she would give permission to name the organization after the late Professor Lupin, whose ideas and example have inspired them.

Andromeda nods. "There's nothing Remus would object to there," she says. Though it's rather an ambitious program, and… expensive. How do they propose to fund it? She's no Potions Mistress, but she does know that Wolfsbane is tricky to make and it does not seem, from previous discussion, that there's much support for their program in the Ministry.

Justin says he didn't have the Ministry in mind, but private sources of funding.

Bill tells him he oughtn't to be modest, and turns to her. "Justin is proposing to fund this from family money." She frowns, not sure what he means.

Justin clarifies. Finch-Fletchley family money. His parents are quite supportive of the cause, like many wealthy philanthropists in past who have seen the need of fighting an affliction that affects one of their children. Unless she has a philosophical objection to a wizarding organization receiving Muggle funds…

She shakes her head, feeling a bit dizzy.

Justin smiles. "Then it's settled?"

She says there's certainly no objection on her part to naming the organization for Remus, although she'll want to review their program in detail before taking a final decision.

Justin says, "Of course." From his satchel, he produces a thick manuscript on Muggle paper, bound in a plastic cover.

He adds, "We'll be asking you to sit on the board. That is, if your schedule permits?"

Andromeda says the only impediment she could imagine would be child-care. Teddy Lupin, you know.

Justin says they'd be delighted to meet Teddy, so it's settled, then, and moves on to the next agenda item, which is the information gathering on incidents of anti-werewolf discrimination against Dumbledore's Army veterans and other war survivors afflicted with Borderline Lycanthropoid Disorder. He adds: _particularly_ as this disorder is most decidedly not specified in the Umbridge legislation, and his solicitors have advised him that they might have matter for a formal action before the Wizengamot.

Bill says, "So our fuzzy little problem has a name now. "

Justin says he's been talking with Hippocrates Smethwyck and Boudicca Derwent at St. Mungo's, and they've agreed that there's no call to immortalize Fenrir Greyback by including him in the nomenclature for the disorder. It was rather a poser coming up with something appropriately neutral and clinically accurate, but they've managed it, he thinks. He adds that Smethwyck and Derwent contributed the clinical guidelines for the capture-and-rehabilitation program as well as the recommendations on the Wolfsbane Potion regime. Furthermore, Derwent was able to secure permission for use of the notes of the late Professor Snape, from the archives of the War Crimes Commission.

Andromeda is quite impressed at Justin's self-possession, not to mention his apparently easy access to two Senior Healers. The scars do much to subtract the impression of extreme youth that his rosy schoolboy's features give if you see only the undamaged half of his face. Wealth is an entrée everywhere, regardless of its blood status, it seems. Certainly, the doors of St. Mungo's have always been open to wealthy donors, as she witnessed in the case of her brother-in-law Lucius. Apparently Justin's wealth is comparably sufficient to guarantee the sort of leisure that permits clinical briefings with busy Healers and the engagement of their services as consultants.

The meeting doesn't close formally so much as it dissolves back into school gossip and the delighted consumption of the treats on the tea-table. Toward the end, the fireplace flares again and the face of Bill's brother Ron shines in the flames, asking Bill if he can stop in.

"By all means," Bill says, "we're just wrapping up tea with friends. Come right over."

The flames flash brilliant green and Ron steps through. The Gryffindor alumni stand up, those who can, and greet him. Andromeda notices that Lavender Brown remains seated, although she does grasp the ornamental handle of her cane as if she'd like to stand but doesn't judge her strength sufficient. The cane is a beautiful accessory, whose silver and lapis coordinate with her robe-and-cloak ensemble, but it's not the sort of fashion statement that an eighteen-year-old witch ought to be required to make.

Padma Patil tells her in a low voice that Lavender and Ron were an item two years ago. From the look he just gave her, it might not be so past-tense as all that, Padma thinks, and she adds that this is the third time that Ron has accidentally arrived at the close of their meeting.

Andromeda sips her tea and smiles at the gossip, which gives her a pang of Ted. He'd quite enjoy watching the changing romantic configurations and political alliances among the young people, who were just schoolchildren a year or two ago. She would have brought him those stories like a gift, she thinks, something to talk over in bed…

Well, no matter. Soon she'll have enough to do, thanks to Bill, Fleur and Justin, and she'll be quite occupied tonight in reading the proposal that Justin has given her.

***


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

Andromeda steps through the Floo into the Weasley kitchen and finds herself facing Harry, who says, "Someone's been looking for you," and indicates the window opening onto the summer dusk. With a reproachful hoot, an altogether too familiar owl swoops into the kitchen to demand its tribute before permitting her to untie the letter on its leg. She fumbles with the canister of owl treats, feeling self-conscious about Harry's level gaze on her.

After what seems like an eternity, the owl takes flight again through the open window. She doesn't need to look at the seal on the letter to know whence it comes. Cissy didn't listen to her request for discretion, apparently, and now the game is up.

Harry is looking at her with a slight frown that might be puzzlement and might also be disapproval. His thin pale face is remarkably hard to read, and the spectacles and thatch of black hair serve to veil his eyes, which doesn't help. Finally he says, "That's the Malfoys' owl."

She nods. "Yes. My sister has been writing to me."

Harry doesn't say anything, but glances at the still unopened letter in her hands.

"She's never been discreet," Andromeda says, feeling growing irritation at this boy who's looking at her. Yes, her grandson's godfather, but still a boy, and not old enough to understand what it means to have grown up with someone and then to lose her… Strange to feel this reflexive loyalty to Cissy, who's careless, self-centered, manipulative, and for these last sixteen years, far more loyal to her husband than to her own sister.

"She's on house arrest now, isn't she?" Harry says. "Not in Azkaban any more."

"Yes." Irritated beyond reason now (the high-strung Black family temperament would assert itself at the worst moments) she says, "She told me to remind you that you owe her a life debt."

Harry nods. "So how long has she been writing to you?"

Andromeda draws herself up to her full height and glowers at Harry. She knows that this more than emphasizes her resemblance to Bellatrix, and she can see the reaction she wanted as he visibly backs down. "She's my sister, and unless this is an official interrogation, I don't owe you an answer to that. And if it is an official interrogation, I think I would prefer to talk to an Auror who isn't my grandson's godfather."

Harry mumbles that he's sorry, and no, it isn't official. He's just surprised that she could write to someone who… did all that.

Andromeda corrects him: no, it was Bellatrix who did all that, if by "all that" he means the killing of her family. Narcissa made unfortunate choices, but she was never the fanatic that Bellatrix was.

Harry says yes, he knows. Otherwise she and Lucius wouldn't have defected, and she wouldn't have lied to Voldemort on his behalf. Andromeda flinches at the name, out of ancient habit, though properly it doesn't mean anything any more. Nothing will menace her or her family if she fails to be fully respectful to Bella's Dark Lord. But no one who lived through those two wars is going to be able to say that name without trepidation for a long time to come.

She says, "I've talked to her about that owl, but she doesn't listen. You'll take my part if there's a question about it." Not a question. "I know that there's no love lost between Arthur and Lucius. Lucius was quite a piece of work, even at the best of times. But this isn't about him. This is me and my sister. And as an Order member, I'll be the first to tell you if it looks like anything other than that."

Harry nods, looking chastened. He looks like a little boy who's just been scolded, which is right enough.

"If it sets your mind at ease, Harry, she talks about babies and gardens. She asks after Teddy."

Harry looks fierce.

"No, she doesn't mean him any harm. She has a boy of her own to worry about, and children are about the only thing we have in common at this point." Harry's mouth quirks scornfully, and he turns away without even saying goodnight.

She continues as she intended, making herself a cup of chamomile tea, and floating it upstairs ahead of her as she picks at the seal on the parchment. Harry never got on with Cissy's boy, that much she's picked up, not that she would have expected that he would. Harry's hand-me-down clothes, let alone his friendship with Ron, would excite automatic contempt from that little pureblood prince in the silk dress robes.

This letter is rather a change in tone. She sips the soothing tea as she parses it. There's far less formality than before, and now it's becoming clear what Cissy's agenda is. Yes, Cissy has a boy of her own to worry about, and now she's asking about him.

Cissy says he's been writing her all along, including when she was in Azkaban—two and sometimes three letters a week, more than which she couldn't ask—but she's worried that something is wrong. There's something that he isn't saying, something that's wrong. After all that trouble with Bella—she really does blame Bella, because Draco was never surly and secretive before their older sister came back from Azkaban—now she just doesn't trust it when he's not forthcoming. Something is wrong; she just knows it.

Andromeda realizes that probably no one told Cissy about the assault—she certainly didn't—but there may be more than that. Cissy wouldn't have survived the last year in the company of her Dark Lord without an exceptionally keen nose for trouble. If she thinks something is amiss with her son, there probably is.

She folds the letter up and goes downstairs to find Harry. He's come back into the kitchen and is preparing himself a late-night snack. She says, "This time it _is_ official. I have some questions for you."

He sits down at the table to eat his beans and toast and gestures for her to join him.

No, he doesn't know if anyone actually told Lucius and Narcissa about what happened to their son. Draco is under guard at Hogwarts, which Harry knows because there are a couple of Aurors in the office who really dislike that detail. He'd guess that Draco is at least as safe at Hogwarts as he'd be anywhere else in wizarding Britain. And except for a stay in the hospital wing, which was more about security than health, he hasn't heard anything to indicate that he's been sick.

Andromeda recalls that Ron had thought Hermione and Neville should have left him to his fate.

"Well, that's Ron. He loses his temper and he talks," Harry says. "But he did help me to pull him out of the fire, and he did save him from a Death Eater. And if Hermione took up for him, that's worth at least two Aurors, because she has plenty of reason to hate him. You can probably tell Narcissa he's fine. He's being looked after."

"So I can tell her that—with confidence? From the person who owes her a life debt?"

"Yes," Harry says. "From the person who owes her a life debt. And you can tell her I remember that, and I'll be testifying at the trial. Tell her that from me."

He puts down his fork and stares at the plate.

"It's not how I thought it would turn out at all," he says. "I owe a life debt to the… _person_ who helped to kill Sirius." She hears the epithet he didn't use, out of respect to Narcissa's sister.

"That was Bellatrix," she reminds him.

"No, Bellatrix might have killed him, but she helped. 'Miss Cissy and Miss Bella,' Kreacher said. Remus said they treated the elf better than Sirius did, so he helped them set up the trap."

He sighs. "Sirius said you were his favorite cousin."

Harry wants stories, the stories she knows and he doesn't. And she'd rather tell stories about Sirius than go upstairs to write a reply to that letter, because she's remembering the multiple instances of Cissy's perfidy as well. It wasn't only her favorite cousin that Cissy helped to kill, and Andromeda knows that she doesn't want to dwell on that just now, because it won't bring back Ted or Nymphadora or Remus, and it will poison her dreams.

It doesn't hurt as much as she thought it might, to tell those stories.

How Sirius proposed marriage to her when he was seven and she was fourteen, because she coached him in Quidditch. How Ted Tonks was, in fact, The Man Who Corrupted Sirius Black, because he'd taught him how to tinker with motorbikes and the two of them had worked together on the big black motorbike that became his trademark vehicle. Ted checked out all of the mechanicals, and then fine-tuned the charms Sirius had set to make it fly. Ted also introduced him to Muggle music and the two of them took him and Remus out to a dance club in London. Then the leather jacket she gave Sirius for his fifteenth birthday got her a Howler from Aunt Walburga, the first correspondence since she'd been blasted off the tapestry.

"'Blood traitors and filth,'" she quotes, "'and indecent Muggle rags. I never thought I would live to see a daughter of the House of Black know anything about such things…' and so on, long and loud. Ted was laughing fit to burst. She was quite mad, was Aunt Walburga. That picture at Grimmauld Place is her to the life." She adds, "And the curtain in front of it is quite an improvement, I should say. I wish we'd had the like when she was alive."

She says, "Your godfather was quite a charmer. I remember the Muggle girls in that club couldn't get enough of him. There's poor Remus, stuck dancing with me—imagine it, his friend's married cousin—and caught in the middle when Ted stepped in to tell those girls that this was his wife's baby cousin and he was only sixteen. Sirius wouldn't talk to Ted or Remus for days. There were two or three girls vying to take him home, and he was ready to take his chances. And he'd been letting on he was more like twenty-five."

What she doesn't spell out, because she isn't sure that she should, is the edge of cruelty she always felt in that charm. She remembers the hurt on Remus' face that night, when Sirius amused himself attracting the girls—and not a few boys too—and then dancing away. Too much had come to Sirius too easily. He liked to amuse himself playing others' reactions, and Remus didn't understand that the hurt look was catnip to him. Not to mention the pranks he got up to at Hogwarts, which she learned from Remus, when he took her aside to ask advice on restraining the worst of it. There wasn't much she could tell him, really. Sirius would do what he would do, and the world could go hang.

No, Harry doesn't want to hear that part. She can tell, by the look of adoration on his face when she mentions Sirius' name. He wants a patron saint whose image he can carry in his heart and defend.

So she tells him how Ted and Sirius used to sit on the back steps of an evening, drinking butterbeer and laughing at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She even tells Harry about the nicknames, Ralph and Crazy B, Lucky and The Princess and The Clone.

Harry, Muggle-reared if not Muggle-born, does in fact know what a clone is, and bursts into laughter. He agrees that Lucky would be a fitting nickname for Draco's father, who thus far has escaped from tight corners against all expectation.

And the Princess, he said, that's your sister?

"Oh yes," she replies. "A real princess, even if I'm the one named after the princess in peril. What Cissy wants, Cissy gets. Bella was the good example, Cissy was the pretty one, and I was the one in the middle."

Which reminds her of the letter she owes, which her conscience tells her she's treating like a deferred school assignment.

As she goes up the stairs to her narrow little room, she thinks about how fast the people she knew are turning into historical figures, mere names. She can still see seven-year-old Sirius' cheeky grin as he said, "Cousin Andromeda, marry me and we'll run away and I'll be a famous Seeker." And Remus, sitting quietly by her side as Sirius and Ted argued about how to get maximum lift from a flying charm, and how far the flared fenders would interfere with that. Quiet Remus, who's going to be immortalized in the name of an organization that, with Justin's money, may well achieve the ends that would have made Remus' life worth living. For all that, if he'd lived, Justin would have been happy enough to hire him to head the group.

Her dead are all receding into history, making her feel like a superannuated survivor.

***

For all her procrastination, the letter is surprisingly easy to write. After all, the matter is brief: Harry acknowledges the life debt, says that he will testify on Cissy's behalf come the war crimes trials, and reassures her that her son is being well looked after at Hogwarts.

And no, she doesn't mention what happened before, though Andromeda knows that the longer they defer that, the more of an explosion it will be if Cissy ever discovers it by some other route.

She adds a few lines about the garden, and Teddy's health (she leans over his cot to peek at him lying in a nest of blankets and toys, and yes, he's pink and healthy, with blue hair… no, more blue-violet. Its color cycles gently through the spectrum as he sleeps, much as Nymphadora's hair did.)

She rolls up the letter, seals it, and goes to look for one of the Weasley family owls.

***

It's already dark when Andromeda hears the crack of Apparition just inside the hedgerow. Most everyone has gone to bed, and she's just doused the lights in the kitchen and gone up the stairs. She recognizes the tall figure of Ron Weasley loping across the grass; he's coming back late from Shell Cottage, but there's someone with him.

She lies down to sleep, with the sound of crickets in the garden, which usually soothes her into sleep.

Then the voices under the window catch her attention: it's Ron and Bill, and the undertone of _family argument_ snaps her awake.

"I don't fancy you telling me what to do with my life. I get enough of that from mum."

"I'm not telling you what to do with your life, Ron. I _am _telling you to be careful with her."

Ron mumbles something she doesn't hear, except for Harry's name.

"No, it was Parvati—the one who picked up the pieces the _last_ time. And this is not a schoolchildren's club; it's serious politics."

"Right, I go wandering the countryside breaking hearts, because as everyone knows I'm the most fanciable bloke in wizarding Britain." The sarcasm is palpable, as is the bitterness under it. "Just ask bloody Hermione…"

Bill cuts him off short. "Show a little gratitude. She took a hit for you. The Goblins got their two-thirds because Harry covered us, and Mum and Dad still have the Burrow because she's busy working off the last third."

"I thought Harry covered that."

"The Goblins don't recognize _partial payment,_ not after you mucked things up with your clever ideas. And they have very long memories."

"You aren't going to let go of that, are you?"

"Not until the Goblins do, which means you can live to a hundred and fifty and die waiting. But in the meantime, you don't play games with Lavender. You're still on about Hermione, and if that's clear to me, it will be blindingly obvious to her."

Andromeda sits up; there's no hope of sleep now. She sits up, casts _Lumos,_ and begins reading Justin's proposal for the Remus Lupin Foundation.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

In mid-August, Ginny Weasley makes good on her promise; no sooner has the sun cleared the horizon on the eleventh of August, than Ginny is sitting at the long table in the kitchen of the Burrow writing out her Owl to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to accept the offer of Auror training as a member of the Hogwarts Defense Association. For good measure, she cuts her finger and lets a bead of blood drip onto the point of the quill before she signs her name. Andromeda reflects that Ginny is taking no chances on her mother's interference; she's turned a piece of business correspondence into a blood contract. Since the Holyhead Harpies, and for that matter, any of the Quidditch teams, are not recruiting for the duration—and who knows how long "the duration" will be—she's taken the second-best offer.

Andromeda looks at Ginny quizzically over her shoulder, as she sets the first preparations in motion for the feast that will transpire later in the day, in honor of Ginny's coming-of-age. Molly won't be up for an hour or two, and Andromeda knows how grateful Molly is for the opportunity she's providing for an hour or two of sleep, or time alone with Arthur.

Ginny entrusts the letter to the family owl, then watches as the bird takes flight from the window and soars over the yard. Once it has cleared the hedgerow and is lost in the growing light, Ginny turns back to her with a smile that recalls Bellatrix on the warpath. "Mum made the mistake of telling me when I was born," she says. "Two hours before dawn on the eleventh of August. So I've been of age for at _least _three hours now, and there's not a thing she can do about that contract."

Andromeda nods. Ginny has learned a bit of her story from Harry, she suspects, and in the last weeks has been gravitating to her as to a fellow rebel. "I hope you're not going to bring that up today," she says. "There's choosing one's battles, you know."

Ginny frowns. "Well, contrary to what _she'd_ have you believe, I'm not always the one starting the wars around here. I don't want a fight at my birthday party if I can avoid it." She adds confidingly, "Harry hates it when we fight, you know. I think it scares him. He thought we were a lot more perfect than we are. But then it's always been a whole lot easier being a boy in this family."

That's not the story that Andromeda hears from Ron, but she isn't going to bring it up with Ginny, not least because what he told her was under the seal of confidence. Ginny might have had to contend with Fred and George in their more barbaric phase, but never at such close quarters as her brother. Ever since Andromeda crossed paths with Ron at Shell Cottage, he's been coming down to talk with her in the early morning or at odd moments in the evening. Ron reminds her a bit of Sirius in that way, less the aristocratic swagger: the shy way he sidles up to her to talk about the things that puzzle him about girls, or life, or family.

He even half-apologized for what he said about her sister at mid-summer, at Harry's birthday party. "Harry told me you were writing to her," he said, running a hand through his thick red hair and making it stand on end. She'd never seen that gesture before, so she assumed that he was more than unusually ill at ease. "I think I understand, sort of. Like Percy, when he came back. It's not easy." He said, "We were at her house, you know." He doesn't say _Malfoy Manor, _nor does he mention _Hermione_ nor _torture, _but she can guess that's what's going through his head; she's guessed that Rita Skeeter's public speculation on that subject was one of the catalysts in his breakup with Hermione.

After a pause, Ron added, "But she's your sister, and, well, that's different. Just like Percy is my brother. You don't get a choice, do you?"

He shuffled some more, and then said, "And Draco is a prat, but he's your nephew. And I suppose we really shouldn't talk about feeding people to the Dementors. Harry told me that Kingsley wanted to get rid of them, but they came back to Azkaban anyway."

Andromeda nodded.

Of course, she doesn't know much more about it than that, but from Kingsley's own lips she knows that there are reasons that a person should hesitate before taking the oath to become Minister for Magic; once that threshold has been crossed, there are matters of which one may not speak to any other living soul. The Fidelius Charm has a relatively benign reputation, but the complex version of it that binds the Minister includes under its cloak of silence every contractual bond ever undertaken by any previous Minister with forces Light or Dark, including agreements which, by their nature, never were written down. Time out of mind, the Dementors have guarded Azkaban Fortress, and no one below the highest levels of the Ministry knows the terms of their binding.

She said to Ron, "I don't actually know my nephew. The last time I saw him, he didn't talk yet."

Ron couldn't resist saying that he was sorry he'd missed that part, because he couldn't think of anyone he'd more like to put under more-or-less-permanent _Silencio._ Then he recited, fresh as if they'd happened yesterday, every insult Draco had ever thrown at him, most having to do with his parents' poverty, his mother's appearance, and his own shabby second-hand possessions. So it wasn't very noble of him, he knew, but he couldn't feel too sorry for the little shit for being worked over—by a gang of thirteen-year-old Hufflepuffs, no less—when he'd spent _years_ wishing he could lay hands on him. And there's a certain poetic justice in what's about to happen to his family, if the rumors are true—that they're going to be expropriated down to the last knut and sent to Azkaban.

Azkaban. For life.

Andromeda hugged herself, feeling at a second remove the famous chill of the North Sea prison. It was nothing that Sirius ever said in so many words, of course, but more the dead faraway look on his face, when someone had chanced to pronounce its name at an Order meeting at Grimmauld Place, three years ago now. And now Cissy is talking about how long it was taking for Lucius to regain his old self after his most recent stay there…

What she couldn't miss in that letter was the tenderness and devotion her sister felt toward the pitiless and prideful Lucius Malfoy, _her husband,_ the feeling one naturally bears toward the spouse with whom one has negotiated more than two decades of married life and the birth of children: the very feeling she had for Ted, all the more strongly as he was gone and the memory of their many disagreements was fading. That's not what one commemorates in photographs and letters, after all.

In Cissy's case, it would have been the birth of more than one child, though the rearing beyond the third year of but one. She doesn't care to speculate, but she knows Pureblood ways, and she would wager her last knut that Draco is _not_ an only child. Likely he's been cherished in the illusion that he is, and he'll only learn the contrary on his own wedding night, as she suspects that Lucius did. She still remembers his ashen look on the morning after the wedding feast.

There are drawbacks to keeping certain things exclusively men's or women's business, after all, but if it weren't for a certain level of secrecy and mystification, the whole game would be up within a generation, she thinks. It wouldn't be merely rebels like herself or Sirius who would be kicking over the traces and refusing to be harnessed to the dubious task of perpetuating their Family under the watchful eyes of less than beneficent ancestors.

***

Against all expectations, Ginny's birthday party passes without incident. Molly is in her glory as the mother of the only Prewett-Weasley witch of her generation, and bustles about offering around refreshments and complacently accepting compliments on what a fine daughter she has, an accomplished athlete and a Knight of the Order of Merlin (Second Class) and the affianced beloved of the Boy Who Lived, though that's not official yet. Andromeda suspects it's this last that causes Molly the most pride, and realizes that after all, Molly Prewett Weasley is a Pureblood matron, and even if the Weasleys don't preside over the likes of Grimmauld Place or Malfoy Manor, they have their dynastic ambitions. They don't do it the old-fashioned way, of course, with marriage negotiations and the whole gauntlet of Pureblood betrothal ritual; Molly and Arthur rather broke that tradition—or established a new one—with their own elopement.

Though there was no mistaking Molly's pride when she'd mentioned that she'd been approached two years ago by Augusta Longbottom, of all people, about the possibility of a marriage alliance, since her Neville seemed to be fond of Ginny, and (she said) there were few she held in higher esteem than Molly and Arthur Weasley. Madam Longbottom is formidable on so many levels that one can't begin to enumerate them. Of course, Molly had known for whom it was her daughter cherished more than a fancy, and she'd decided to bet on the long shot of a Potter alliance rather than the sure thing of a contract with the Longbottoms.

Molly said that Madam Longbottom had looked at her shrewdly and said that from her own experience, she knew it was best to pay attention to the inclinations of one's children. Then she'd smiled that raptor's smile for which she is known and feared. The passing of eight decades has not erased the scandal of Augusta Longbottom's own elopement—her first marriage, before she married Frank Longbottom—which still sets a standard for misalliance in the eyes of the hard-line Purebloods.

Andromeda herself had been approached, in the wake of the set-to at the Department of Mysteries. It was logical enough, at least by Pureblood reasoning; Nymphadora had been a protégée of Mad-Eye Moody, Frank Longbottom's mentor, which made her practically family; Madam Longbottom already had a name as a blood traitor so she would consider a valiant half-blood Auror quite a catch. However, once she had had fifteen minutes' conversation with Nymphadora, she'd carefully backed off the notion of a Longbottom-Tonks alliance. There was something about Nymphadora that was quite clear to the elder witch, though she never did say what it was.

She only said, very much later, that the proposed match had been an interesting thought _in theory_. Of late, since the war, she had a good guess whom it was her Neville might fancy, but (she added) _that_ would be a long road indeed.

***

The confrontation between Molly and Ginny doesn't happen at the party, but the next day, which is Friday. Ginny leaves at dawn with Ron and Harry, wearing her usual jeans and T-shirt, and returns ahead of them that afternoon through the Floo wearing the trainee Auror robes, black with scarlet facings.

Andromeda is in the kitchen nursing Teddy and washing out greens for the dinner salad, when Ginny steps through and straightens up.

They've already been through preliminary drills, she can see, because in the first flare of emerald green, Ginny appears in a springy half-crouch with her wand firmly grasped in her right hand. _An Auror already,_ she thinks, _just like Nymphadora_. Ginny is carrying herself with a new authority, the economy of movement of the trained warrior already being added to the shadow-slide of the guerrilla and the bravado of the athlete.

She looks quite striking, the black of the robes setting off her pale freckled skin and the scarlet, surprisingly enough, striking just the right notes in her coppery hair. And that hair is cut differently too—no longer a straight satin curtain, but short and spiky so that it almost sparkles.

Andromeda smiles. "Your hair," she says.

Ginny runs a hand through it and smiles crookedly. "Half of us went out and got the cut this afternoon." The smile takes on a rueful edge. "About half the girls in the field Auror corps are wearing it like this. It's called a Tonks."

"Oh," Andromeda says. She lets the last of the washed greens drop into the bowl and flicks her wand to start the knives chopping for dinner prep.

Ginny adds that some of them are charming theirs bubble-gum pink or electric blue, but she didn't think that would look too good with her skin or the scarlet robes either.

_A laugh and a pang, as always._ Andromeda lets the chuckle bubble to the surface. "No, I never thought it looked very well on Nymphadora either, but at least she was a natural."

"And I'm not Tonks," Ginny adds in a softer voice. She looks at Andromeda hesitantly, suddenly a little girl only dressed up as a soldier. "It is all right, isn't it?"

"If you mean am I offended, no," she replies. "And you're not going to give me flashbacks, if that's what else you mean. Though I do appreciate the warning about the ones wearing it in pink…"

Ginny looks even more rueful; plainly enough she hadn't thought of that. She changes the subject. "So, is mum about?"

"Gone to the Diagon Alley apothecary and then the Ministry," Andromeda says. "Something to do with Percy, I think." Ginny's expression hardens momentarily. "He hasn't been well, you know, for the last week. Not since last Thursday."

It takes a fraction of a second for the knut to drop. "When Pius Thicknesse committed suicide," Ginny says. It had been all over the _Daily Prophet _for days, the joint suicide of the former Minister and his wife, both of whom had been under _Imperius_ for over a year during the unofficial reign of Voldemort. Andromeda sees the implication settle on her as the color drops under her fair skin, and her hand comes up to cover her mouth. "They're not thinking of indicting Percy, are they?" She sits down abruptly. "He's a total prat, but he's not a war criminal. And he did come over to the right side in the end…"

"More than a bit sooner than that, I think," Andromeda says, "but that's not for attribution." She wonders if she should be saying even this much; Kingsley Shacklebolt knows, and he mentioned it in passing to her, but she also knows that it's being treated as covert war service on behalf of the Order. On the other hand, the Pureblood supremacist faction in the Ministry is looking for a sacrificial victim, and Thicknesse was to have been that figurehead, for all he had been under Imperius. The interview in this morning's _Prophet _had confirmed it; Senior Healer Derwent from the St. Mungo's Spell Damage Department said that his Pensieve depositions unambiguously indicated Imperius_._ Percy Weasley, the former Minister's Special Assistant, is the logical next choice, as the Minister's right hand and the signatory on most of the official correspondence of the Thicknesse Ministry.

Andromeda thinks, but doesn't say, what a contrast this is to the last go-round, when her brother-in-law Lucius was able to declare himself a victim of _Imperius_ and walk away with full amnesty. On the other hand, they didn't do full Pensieve depositions last time, and no doubt his example is part of what prompted them this time. And if the _Prophet _is to be trusted, there's been some considerable progress in the past decade in the detection and treatment of spell damage from _Imperius _and _Cruciatus._

"I can take Teddy," Ginny says. Andromeda hands him over. Ginny turns her face to him and coos; Teddy reaches toward her and takes a firm grip on the tip of her nose. She laughs and jiggles him. "You're a good boy, Teddy, you didn't give your gran any trouble, did you?"

"Gah," Teddy says, his all-purpose rejoinder to any conversation. It's only the pitch and duration that give clues to the emotional tenor. Just now he's content and taking a rather mellow view of current events, specifically that he's being fussed over by one of his favorite people. Ginny tells him that his godfather is en route from the Ministry and will be there shortly.

However, the one who steps through the Floo next is Molly Weasley, whose first words are "_Ginevra._ Your hair!"

Andromeda instinctively steps forward and takes the baby out of Ginny's arms, and backs off to the corner of the kitchen, making sure that she has an unobstructed path to the back door if need be. Apparition would be a last resort, since it's not advisable for the very young.

"Yes, mum, I got it cut," Ginny replies, "It's regulation length and a bit shorter." She smiles and shakes her head a bit. "I like it this way. Feels light. Nothing in the way." It's not as if she has anything to hide; she's standing there in the kitchen in the trainee Auror uniform; if her mum can't figure this one out, she's too thick by half.

Molly puts her parcels down on the table and then turns to look at her daughter. "We'll sort this out after dinner," she says.

"Nothing to sort out," Ginny says. "I signed the contract, they accepted me, and I'm in. First day of work today, next one Monday. I didn't want to wait the weekend." She says, "I was of age when I signed it, too. I got up early and celebrated my coming of age by signing a binding agreement." She smiles, and it's not friendly. "And if you decide to kick me out, I can always to move over to Grimmauld Place or go room with Hermione at Hogwarts."

At moments like this, Andromeda is reminded afresh that this is the woman who took down Bellatrix Lestrange, and she flicks her eyes from Molly to Ginny to the door, wondering whether stillness or swift escape would be the safer course. Ginny is fully as formidable as her mother, which of course Molly doesn't see, in her protective mother-tiger mode.

(_"Not my daughter, you bitch!"_ That's what she said to Bellatrix, according to Ron, who told the tale with awe divided equally between the object of his mother's wrath and the terms in which it had been expressed.)

The Weasley mother and daughter face each other, eye to eye, more in the stance of mortal enemies than blood kin, and Ginny has her own wand in hand, in the approved Auror grip. Thinking about it later, Andromeda still doesn't know how it would have turned out had the Floo not flared green to admit Harry and then Ron.

Molly the avatar of righteous vengeance immediately vanishes into Molly the goddess of the hearth, as she smiles tenderly at Harry. Not at Ron, Andromeda notices, and Ron notices it too, she thinks, the hurt of it not blunted by repetition, either; Ron shrugs (a species of flinch) and follows Harry into the front room. Without taking her eyes off her mother, Ginny follows them, leaving Molly and Andromeda in possession of the kitchen.

Now that the possibilities for violence have been temporarily defused by the arrival of the favored son-in-law-to-be, Andromeda starts the knives chopping again for the simple Friday evening meal. Molly looks into the salad bowl and says that some of the tomatoes are just coming ripe, and walks out the door to the garden to harvest some.

Andromeda is already thinking about her next letter to Cissy: so many subjects to avoid, so what will she substitute? She's developed a fair knack for writing about gardens, she thinks. A little prose poem about aubergines and tomatoes, perhaps, with a little fillip about the fresh well water that rinses the gritty soil from the roots of spinach and lettuce… When things settle down, she thinks she might make inquiries at the _Daily Prophet. _They haven't had a decent garden columnist in ages, not since Callidora L. Black retired to turn her attention to writing books on interior decorating and household defense.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

In the dark of the night, Andromeda wakes to find herself thinking about the letters she has written to her sister. Should she have told her about what happened to Draco? It's the first time that the omission feels like lying, but it's too late. She's already made it too many times to pretend it was inadvertent.

She gets up, wraps her dressing gown about her, and pads down stairs with the thought of pacing the kitchen for a bit in the cold light of the waning gibbous moon. Teddy is sleeping peacefully in his cot, and while she does her best thinking while afoot, she doesn't want to wake him.

At the turn of the stair, she hears something raw and rasping; the hairs go up on the back of her neck and she pauses, frozen.

There's a cold moment in which she doesn't know what the sound is, and then it resolves into panting sobs, all the more painful for their quietness; if one could weep in a whisper, that's what it would sound like, with a hoarse catch at the end that sounds as if it might draw blood. There's almost no voice in it, so impossible to tell who it is who's crying.

Then there's a whisper, "Ginny." The floor creaks. Harry's voice. "Is that the dream again?" A shapeless sound in return, which he must read as an affirmative, because he says, "Do you want me to sit with you?"

The floor creaks again, this time under moving footsteps; the door squeaks on its hinges, then closes. The lock clicks.

The last thing you want to do in this house is to walk in on a scene of any description, and her path seems to be littered with them. In the full light of day, she'll pretend she heard nothing, and they will put on their cheerful post-war faces and eat a hearty breakfast.

***

It's mid-September, and for almost a month now, Cissy has been hinting around the question of her son's well-being. Harry's reassurances helped, for a bit, but apparently Draco still is giving her the impression that he's hiding something, more than one thing perhaps, and Cissy is growing frantic. This time, Andromeda does know part of the story that he's withholding. Toward the end of August, not two weeks after Ginny started Auror training, fourteen rogue Dementors turned up in Hogsmeade in broad daylight right in front of Honeydukes.

The person who drove them off was Hermione Granger, that much is certain. The story isn't official, but living with three trainee Aurors lets you in on secrets that the general public doesn't know. There were two Aurors on the scene, both of whom apparently had some difficulty casting a Patronus, so, as Ron put it sarcastically, "it was a good thing they had a DA veteran there, wasn't it?"

One of the two who'd been on the scene had been complaining about it in the Auror Department tea room, that not only was he on guard detail for the Malfoy spawn, but now they had to contend with rogue Dementors. Rogue indeed, because after the incident, the Aurors had quick-marched the detainee and the two civilians up to the castle; the Headmistress Flooed the Minister, and he had no record of any Dementors dispatched to Hogsmeade by _anyone_ in the Ministry. Since that Umbridge creature, you can believe they're keeping track of the lower levels too, because Shacklebolt won't stand for _that_ again.

The detainee, that would be her nephew, and the two civilians? Well, one of them was Hermione Granger and her bet would be that the other was Neville Longbottom—which she knows, oddly enough, not by way of Ron or Harry but from Cissy. Somehow her sister knows who is keeping company with Draco, and she's unsettled that Headmistress McGonagall would leave him at the mercy of Alice Longbottom's son, who might well be avenging his parents even as she writes...

So now, nearly a month after the incident, Cissy has put it plainly: could she prevail on Andromeda to go to Hogwarts and see Draco in person to find out what is happening?

Andromeda draws a deep breath and lets it out, then stops dead at the next line, in which Cissy adds that she has access neither to threat nor bribe, but asks this _as a sister to a sister, and one mother to another. _

That's as close as she's ever seen the Princess come to outright pleading, and for a moment she feels a pang—what would she write, if it were Nymphadora detained in the enemy camp and writing her falsely cheerful letters?

Well, she'd have no hope if it were Cissy in her position… that she knows already. This is the sister who didn't scruple to participate in the assassination of Sirius, who marched with Bellatrix straight into the mouth of hell—

Until it came to the fate of her son, that is.

In any event, the two cases can't be compared, because Voldemort's people didn't take prisoners—well, not for purposes of pre-trial detention, anyway—and they certainly didn't let them write _letters._ Nymphadora died in battle, and that chapter is over and done, and she won't think about it.

Even from her passing acquaintance with Neville Longbottom, she knows that Cissy has nothing to fear from him. After all, it was he and Hermione who had saved Draco from the would-be lynch mob, and by all accounts Neville is not only brave, but gentle and chivalrous. But Cissy doesn't know about that rescue, and Andromeda never told her. _Nobody_ told her, apparently, and now Cissy worries that her son is being tortured by a hereditary enemy.

***

Mid-September, it turns out, is also the eve of Hermione's birthday. Dean and Luna are wrapping parcels in the kitchen—not in decorative paper, but sturdy brown wrapping paper—and arguing about how best to cushion glazed work from knocks and shocks. Ron walks in and says to Dean, "You're a wizard, for Merlin's sake, haven't you ever heard of a Cushioning Charm?"

Andromeda can't resist the urge to peek in and see what the gifts are.

Dean unwraps the paper to reveal two framed drawings. Muggle work, or at least in Muggle style—Dean's own work—in watercolor and India ink. One is a wonderfully lively portrait of Hermione flanked by Ron on one side and Harry on the other; Hermione, characteristically, is leafing through an antique volume, while Ron arranges chess pieces on a board and Harry plays with a Golden Snitch. "Oh, that's lovely," Andromeda says. "It's all of you to the life."

The other, it turns out, is not a water-color, but a mass-production print: Muggle work in fact. Dean explains in a lowered voice that he's been selling his work and this particular piece is very popular; he would give Hermione the original, since she admired it, but it's currently in the hands of his publisher.

The picture shows two adolescent boys, one dark and one fair, playing wizarding chess. They're wearing antique dress robes in high Pureblood style. The dark one looks like Madam Zabini's late son, and the fair one… like Lucius Malfoy. Except that Dean Thomas, Muggle-born and former fugitive, can't have got close enough to Lucius to sketch this likeness. However much the sharp features recall Lucius, the porcelain complexion, the clarity of the eyes, and the softness of the mouth are those of a teenaged boy, not a hard-bitten politician.

Andromeda looks at it. "That boy looks like Blaise Zabini…" Dean's face lights up; so it is. Sketched from life, sixth year; Dean couldn't stand Blaise but thought he had an intriguing face.

"And the other one—who is that?"

Harry looks at her in astonishment. "That's your nephew."

Ron says, "So why do you think Hermione wants a picture of the Ferret?"

Dean says that she'd admired the picture as a picture. And she knew the art-historical references, too; she'd pointed to Blaise and said, "He's the Learned Moor, or Balthazar from the Three Kings. And Draco, God help us, is the angel Gabriel." Ron looked puzzled, but Harry burst into laughter.

The other gift is from Luna, and it's a painting of the Burrow. It's a proper wizarding painting, but quite unlike any that Andromeda has ever seen. The house is backlit by diffuse dawn light, and everything shimmers; there are no edges at all, and all the light is quivering and evanescent; even the colors don't sit still. She has no reference for this kind of work, that has depth and life but no edges.

That reaction must show on her face, somehow, because Luna steps in to explain that it's a new sort of painting. Dean has been showing her some of the things that Muggle artists have been up to; there's this wonderful big house in Muggle London that's full of paintings. She thinks sometimes that she might like to live there…

Dean says, "We've been going to the Tate, and she fell in love with the Turners and the Whistlers."

Luna says that she suspects that Mr. Turner and Mr. Whistler weren't Muggles at all; they have wizards' eyes, better than some wizards in fact.

"You can have imagination without having magic," Dean says. It sounds like an old argument, for Luna looks at him with her seer's smile and shrugs.

Ginny enters, levitating a huge book in front of her. "I hope that Percy's right about this," she says, "because it wouldn't be _my_ choice of a birthday present." The book lowers itself gently onto the table. Andromeda leans over to look at the title. _A History of the British Floo System and Owl Post, with a Brief Primer on Contemporaneous Muggle Developments, and a Technical Appendix on the Arithmancy of Sophonisba Chattox._

Harry opens the cover and turns over the first few leaves. "This looks pretty abstruse," he says.

"It's a book," Ron says. "She'll like it. She likes books."

Ginny says she won't ask if he's read a book since _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches._ Ron turns bright red and Harry pinks up a bit too. Ginny smirks, then turns to look at the pictures. She nods at Luna's painting of the Burrow, then frowns as she sees the picture of Blaise and Draco. "What's this? She wants to have a picture of the Ferret on her wall?"

Dean tells her it's not a portrait of Draco, per se, but _art._ Ginny rolls her eyes. He says that if it's any help, there are Muggles who own this picture and have no idea who they're looking at. He goes on to point out the technical merits of the picture; he certainly didn't draw Draco and Blaise because he was particularly fond of them, but because of the esthetic contrast: light against dark, Blaise's features with their sumptuous echo of mother Africa, against Draco's razor-sharp Nordic hauteur. Then there's the slate-blue background, chosen to offset both boys' complexions. He adds, "And you'll notice that Draco is playing the black pieces and Blaise is playing the white…"

Ginny stares at the picture for a bit longer, and then says, in a softer voice, that she'd heard it noised about in the Ministry that Professor Slughorn had been pushing for posthumous commendations to Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode. There was no hope of the Order of Merlin, but Slughorn said they assisted with the evacuation of the underage students at the Hog's Head and then helped him with the logistics of bringing in the reinforcements.

"So maybe you got it right," she says. "It seems that Blaise did play the Light side in the end…"

There's a silence, during which Andromeda suspects she's not the only one who remembers what had been said about Zabini and Bulstrode in this very kitchen four months ago.

It's Ron who breaks the silence. "I guess not all of the Slytherins were unforgivable wankers. Just most of them." Then he notices Andromeda and turns bright red. "Present company excepted, of course."

Ginny rolls her eyes. "It's a good thing they've got you in the Auror Department, because you'd be a dead failure in the diplomatic corps."

***

After the birthday party, Ron comes back muttering about Hermione taking flying lessons from the Ferret, and what's that about. She smiles in spite of herself at the nickname: given that her nephew favors his father, there might very well be some resemblance to a ferret, what with the triangular face and twitchy ways. Ron goes on to say that it's supposedly something to keep him out of trouble, but he's loaned Hermione his fancy broom—apparently he has two brooms, his old one from home and the Nimbus 2001, one of the set that Lucius bought for the entire Slytherin Quidditch team. She remembers hearing the faint echo of that kerfuffle from Nymphadora, who heard it from Amos Diggory's cousin in the Auror office.

She gathers that the birthday gift presented by Ron, Harry and Ginny jointly—the abstruse book on the Floo System—was just the thing, in spite of Ginny's doubts. Ron confirms this, telling her that it took all of them to restrain her from starting to read at the table.

"I don't understand her," Ron says, and then startles as if he just heard himself saying something that he didn't know before.

She's still thinking about the letter to Cissy when they return. What to write, when Cissy is now asking for direct and specific action: go to Hogwarts, see her nephew, and on the way ascertain what it is he's been hiding. Quite a tall order, for someone who's never met the boy and no doubt is known to him as the family blood traitor.

Well, if she's going to undertake this, she will have her own conditions. She picks up the quill and writes back to Cissy and tells her quite frankly that she's going to do this but Cissy should realize that Andromeda has her own version of the family history, and if she's going to this kind of trouble, her nephew is going to learn it. He's been sheltered from far too much that he ought to know, to his considerable detriment. And if he's going to have half a chance of survival in the post-war world, he had best understand that there is more than one side to a story.

She puts down the quill with a sigh, looks at what she's written, and decides that she will leave it that way. There's no room here for indirection, and Cissy can do what she likes; she always has, regardless of anyone's permission.

She seals the letter and sends it off with the largest of the owls in the household, then walks out into the yard and Apparates to the house that she and Ted occupied before the war. If she's going to educate her nephew, she's going to require some additional documentation.

The new defenses of the house seem to have kept off the wandering werewolves; except for a little bit of dust inside and overgrowth of garden outside, the place is as it was after Bill and Fleur helped her with the repairs from the raid. She'd consider moving back in, except that now there's the peril of the rogue Dementors.

The family albums stand on the bookshelf, a trap for memory. She opens the first of them and flips through looking for pictures…

Sirius in his Hogwarts robes, at the Leaving Feast, standing next to his friends James and Lily and Peter and Remus, with little Nymphadora in purple and blue and green dress robes—oh yes, she remembers those robes; Nymphadora was in love with sea colors then and playing with making her hair ripple green and blue. In the picture, Lily Evans has conjured a school of orange and yellow fish to swim through Nymphadora's floating locks; from the look on Nymphadora's face, it's clear that she's enchanted with the vision. She's too old to be fooled into grabbing for the fish but young enough yet to be taken with the illusion.

She turns through the pages. Ted did take rather a lot of pictures; he loved wizarding photographs and eventually took to making the developing Potion at home. Months and then years pass, marked by pictures; the clock is ticking down to the moment when everything comes apart, and then the five friends become James and Lily the martyrs, Sirius the betrayer, Peter the doomed hero, and Remus… well, Remus, the one who had to carry on alone.

Harry will want some copies of all of these, she realizes. This is his family, too.

The moment of betrayal isn't documented, of course, nor is the actual moment that the war ended. But there's that picnic in 1982 again—Cissy with baby Draco, Andromeda with Nymphadora, now long-legged and impish.

No, she can't choose now, though she knows that she _will _give him the picture in which she and Cissy are sitting side by side, with their children on their laps. _As a sister to a sister, and one mother to another. Yes, we did know each other once._ The Black Family albums she doesn't own, so she can't show her nephew pictures of herself at his age. She remembers the picture in which she and Cissy and Bella are standing shoulder to shoulder, all wearing Slytherin House robes. No doubt that picture has been destroyed, if Aunt Walburga was actually as thorough as claimed. After all, the artifacts in Sirius' room only persisted (so Harry told her) because Sirius had applied extra-strong charms to them: the Gryffindor flag and the magazine photos of Muggle girls in bathing costume stuck to the wall for all eternity, just like Aunt Walburga's portrait downstairs.

She can laugh now, but when she was a child, Aunt Walburga was genuinely terrifying. She still remembers those mad diatribes about the right thing to do about the Muggle-born Question, not to mention the Muggle Question... that was, she believes, the first time she heard mention of Fiendfyre. The second mention was from Hermione, who had told her about how it was her nephew came to owe her, Ron and Harry a life debt.

Up to that point, the meaning of Ron's gibe hadn't been clear: "Or did you want to make it a magical three times that Draco Malfoy owes us his worthless life?" Not a turn of phrase at all, but literal fact. He owes them a life debt, and from all she can glean, he has never acknowledged it. Very bad form, that, and she would have thought that Cissy had raised her son better.

She waves her wand to duplicate the pictures and sweeps them into a file envelope and thence to the purse she wears at her belt. She'll leave Harry to take what he likes, and as he's working through the pile, she might see the right pictures to bring to Draco.

***


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

*******

Andromeda arrives late to her lunch date with Harry and Hermione at the Leaky Cauldron, the last week of September. It was to have been her and Harry, but Harry Flooed her at the last minute to say that he was going to bring Hermione along, because he hadn't seen her in ages. Andromeda notices that he doesn't mention Ron, and that this has an almost clandestine feel to it.

Harry says, with some unease, that she's made herself scarce since the birthday party. Busy at the Ministry, that's the story, but she's only a few floors away from him, and he never sees her.

Andromeda waits for the rest of the story.

Harry adds that she's come down to the Auror Department once or twice, but with Ron and Ginny there it was… awkward.

Andromeda has noticed that Ginny's manner when Harry talks about Hermione is almost jealous… well, she understands that Harry and Hermione traveled together for part of last year's quest, what they jokingly call the Great Horcrux Hunt. Harry broke off with Ginny, to keep her safe, so he said, but she apparently doesn't see it that way. There's a curiously mistrustful look on her face sometimes when he talks about Hermione.

Ginny sounds very like her mother when she delivers herself of judgments on Hermione: the theme is that Hermione doesn't understand, that she can't possibly understand, because she's not _one of ours_. Whether she means that Hermione was not reared in the wizarding world or simply that she's not a Weasley is unclear.

So neither Ginny nor Ron is in attendance at the lunch, to which Andromeda arrives late, because Teddy was unusually wriggly when she dressed him, and she was clumsy as she always is when she hurries. Hermione sees her, starts, and backs out of the booth, wand out—until Harry catches her wrist and says, "No. It's Andromeda. Not Bellatrix."

Andromeda is reminded afresh of her first meeting with Harry, when he made the same mistake. It was on the occasion of his flight from his Muggle relatives—the very occasion on which her daughter's mentor, Mad-eye Moody, fell as a casualty.

Hermione turns red and mumbles an apology; there's something quite a bit more strained in her manner now. She's tired; the set of her face recalls a forty-year-old rather than a witch not quite twenty. There are no lines yet, but Andromeda now knows where they will show up, come Hermione's seventieth birthday.

Andromeda tells her not to worry, that she's mistaken for Bellatrix more often than she'd like, and she's thinking of charming her hair another color. Ginger might be a good look on her as an honorary Weasley. And, she thinks to herself, she and Molly are accommodating to something like sisterhood. Molly, like her daughter Ginny, is an only daughter in a brood of boys; Andromeda can hear her curiosity sometimes as to what it's like to have sisters. For all that she faced off against Bellatrix and killed her, there are moments when Molly wants to know what Bella was before she became Bellatrix Lestrange, when she was merely Andromeda's older sister.

Teddy is fussy and as soon as she slides into the booth she knows why; he's wanting to be nursed.

They talk of this and that; of the plans to move part of the household to Grimmauld Place—well, not quite plans, more an idea that's floated every time things get tense because of the crowding, and then abandoned again when things settle back to amicable routine. Part of the difficulty is who would live at which location: Harry and Ron and Ginny would be convenient to their work at the Ministry; Dean is contemplating study in London—Muggle training in art, specifically—and London would be a better location for him, though he's clearly fond of the bucolic pleasures of the Burrow, the clear air and the opportunities for landscape sketching and even the farm chores, to which he's taken with the alacrity of the neophyte. Luna got an invitation to join the Aurors, as well, but she turned them down. She's preparing for her NEWTs, and that she can do as well at the Burrow as any other location, and the Burrow is convenient to her family's house, which is still under interdiction; the Ministry has not yet given them permission to rebuild since the Aurors are still picking through the ruined tower for evidence. Her father Xenophilius is serving his house arrest at another location, she thinks, for she hasn't seen him about. Surprisingly, the eccentric Xeno Lovegood was interned in Azkaban as a Voldemort sympathizer; Harry explained to her in a whisper that it was because he'd changed the editorial line of the _Quibbler_ after his daughter was abducted by the Death Eaters, in the hope of securing her safety. There's another bit to the story, she can tell from Harry's expression, but he isn't telling that part.

Molly isn't keen on her daughter living away from home, especially not with her fiance. Andromeda is frankly puzzled by Molly sometimes; it seems that she's set up nearly ideal conditions for encouraging precipitate and too-early marriages, but then she pulls back and insists she wants all of the children close to home and not leaving the fold just yet. Andromeda sees the strain on Molly as well; she's holding together a household that's far too large for the space allotted, though money is less of a worry with Harry and Ron and Ginny all employed and throwing a good part of their trainee Auror wages into the household budget—in Harry's case, nearly all of his wages. As Sirius' heir and his father's, Harry does not actually need to work at any paid employment at all. He's uncomfortable in the role of wealthy benefactor; he slips his handful of Galleons into the kitty with a shamefaced expression.

As she spreads out the photographs for them to sort through, she sees an almost hungry look on Harry's face; the first images he picks up are of Sirius and his schoolmates, among them Harry's father and mother. _Just as Teddy won't know his parents, _she thinks and then quashes the thought. Teddy will have others of his own kind around him, and there will be no shortage of reminisces. It can't be helped; the die is cast, and was so, from the moment that Remus and Nymphadora resolved to join the fight at Hogwarts. One or the other might have been spared, but neither was willing to be the one to stay behind, and she rather suspected that Remus assumed he would be the one to fall and that Nymphadora, indestructible in her optimism and courage, would carry on.

He was wrong about that, of course…

Harry's looking at a picture of that picnic from 1982, the first summer after the war; there's Remus at the edge of things, looking young and old at the same time… only in his twenties but already carrying the burden of the _last living survivor_ of the band of brothers. Sirius was alive then, of course, but in Azkaban and reckoned a betrayer.

She closes her eyes and sighs, thinking how much more difficult it is to forget what was when it's waving to you under a dappled shimmer of sunlight and shade on the other side of the surface of the photograph. Muggle photographs sit still, she remembers, from the ones she saw at Ted's mother's house. Dean explained to her that Muggle art strives to give the impression of depth and motion using only the flat and motionless; it's pure deception, apparently. But the images of the wizarding world are full of movement, and the spark of magic that animates their figures is sentient and recognizes the viewer on the other side of the picture plane.

Hermione is staring at a copy of Nymphadora's Auror graduation portrait: full scarlet robes against a black ground, with her dark eyes and heart-shaped face and her hair shimmering almost colorlessly through the spectrum from silver to platinum to pure sunlight. There's a flash of resemblance to Cissy there, Andromeda thinks: it's the light-colored hair that catches her attention but it's more than that; the bone structure of the eye sockets and the bridge of the nose, the pointed chin. Nymphadora's holding out her wand in the duelist's salute to the opponent, her face set in solemn lines, but then Andromeda sees her _wink._ Hermione's eyes darken and she catches her lower lip in her teeth as she holds up the picture—and Andromeda remembers what Charlie said about the crush the two of them had on her, Ginny and Hermione, and that Nymphadora recognized it.

Hermione nudges Harry and whispers, "Can I have this one?" He leans over and nods. He's picking out pictures of Sirius and James and Remus, and as he looks at them he compresses his mouth into a hard line and his eyes brighten with tears.

They laugh at the pictures from the 1982 picnic, when she explains who the fussy two-year-old is; Harry actually picks up the one where baby Draco is crying and thrashing on Cissy's lap, throwing a tantrum because Nymphadora has returned him to his mother after a full hour of broom rides. And that leads, more or less directly, to the questions she means to ask them about her nephew in present tense. She knows that he was a schoolmate of theirs, and Hermione must see him regularly because she's staying at Hogwarts.

Harry is diplomatically vague about his exact feelings about Draco, but Hermione's lip curls when she says, "He was the first person here to call me Mudblood." In fact, she'd never heard the epithet before Draco threw it at her, and Harry adds that she'd just stood there looking puzzled the first time she heard it.

Andromeda isn't surprised that Cissy's child would know that word, but she's a little shocked that, even at twelve years old, he would use it publicly at a time when his father was trying to cultivate the image of a defector from the Dark Lord's court.

What's amply clear is that neither Harry nor Hermione is volunteering as a go-between; when Hermione suggests that she write to the Headmistress, it becomes clear that there's something she's very definitely _not saying._ There is some kind of secret that Draco is keeping, and whatever it is, Hermione is in on it—and the Headmistress is the one who can tell it.

And that's not the only secret she's keeping; when Harry attempts to fish for information about the list of war crimes defendants, Hermione is deliberately vague, and then she says that the War Crimes Commission will be putting her under Fidelius before there's even a list to discuss. As much as Andromeda knows is that Hermione is doing some sort of archive work with Pensieve depositions, but there are hints that something more is afoot. Percy has mentioned lunches with Hermione in Diagon Alley, and it's clear from his manner that they're not dates but more in the manner of off-site professional consultations.

***

She finishes her shopping in Diagon Alley and as she's stepping into the public Floo at the Leaky, she knows which of the pictures she's going to give to her nephew. There's one of Remus at Grimmauld Place, by firelight, and one of Nymphadora in full sunlight, and then there's the picture of her and Cissy side by side with their children on their laps, and then a couple of snapshots of Teddy, one in which he's propped up on the back steps of the Burrow, waving his chubby hands at a passing butterfly as his hair turns blue—a characteristic expression of delight on his face—and another one, from Harry's birthday party, where he's snuggling into Harry's arms.

Draco should know who his family is; it doesn't matter if he likes them. She doesn't have high hopes, given all she's heard of him.

When she gets home, she takes out her quill to write a short note to Minerva McGonagall at Hogwarts, explaining her request; she waves her wand to make a duplicate of Cissy's most recent letter and encloses that as well, so it's clear that she's acting as her sister's delegate in this matter.

The next day, one of the Hogwarts owls comes winging in through the kitchen window with the Headmistress' affirmative reply to her request.

***

In the first week of October, Andromeda comes to Hogwarts to meet the nephew she hasn't seen since he was two. Coming up the stairs to the office of the Headmistress is like walking back in time. Suddenly she's self-conscious that she's not wearing Hogwarts student robes; she feels _out of uniform._ Minerva McGonagall keeps the office quite a bit more austere than Dumbledore did, though she observes equivalent hospitality, offering tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits.

Andromeda accepts a cup of tea, and then they get to business nearly immediately.

The first astonishment is that Headmistress McGonagall has received no inquiries from either Narcissa or Lucius about their son. Andromeda frowns; this doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't Lucius the former School Governor be raising the roof if it were a matter of getting the truth out of a mere Headmistress? And then it occurs to her that Headmistress McGonagall was also the commander of the Hogwarts defenders in the late battle, and perhaps Lucius doesn't trust her.

Or perhaps Lucius has nothing to do with this at all, for she realizes that she doesn't know anything about the state of his health except for what Cissy tells, and Cissy never has been entirely dependable for the truth, especially when she had something to hide.

McGonagall is quite straightforward; she details what happened in the attack, how he was set on by seven students from Hufflepuff House, second- and third-year students who had been tortured in the Carrows' detentions by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.

Andromeda frowns; the surnames are familiar—Death Eater colleagues of Lucius—so these must be the sons. McGonagall clarifies: those two had been Draco's sidekicks through much of his tenure at Hogwarts, until this last year when they struck out on their own. It's likely that Draco was attacked because the victims couldn't get their hands on their original tormentors.

Then there's a pause; the Headmistress is visibly composing herself for the next part.

She explains that apparently Draco was having problems with ordinary magic, quite extensive problems, according to Madam Pomfrey.

"And no one knew this?"

No, Mr. Malfoy had not talked about it, until directly questioned after the attack, and even then it was some time before he told Madam Pomfrey what she needed to know.

Andromeda says, "I understand that Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger rescued him."

McGonagall says that yes, those two have been far more helpful than one might expect given Mr. Malfoy's previous animosity toward both of them. Miss Granger is helping to keep him occupied on Saturday mornings—he is giving her flying tutorial—and Mr. Longbottom is helping him to manage tasks of daily living without magic.

Andromeda raises an eyebrow.

"I don't know if you're aware, but Mr. Longbottom was sent to Muggle primary school and knows how to get on without magic."

(Unspoken is the likely reason: his grandmother's fear that he was a Squib, and the desire to get him acculturated to the Muggle world should this fear prove justified. But that's not polite to discuss, of course, now that Neville Longbottom has more than proven himself as a wizard.)

Andromeda tells her quite straightforwardly—and it's in Cissy's letter—that her sister has worries that Neville may exacting revenge.

McGonagall shakes her head, and explains to her that, if anything, Mr. Longbottom has been an exemplary caretaker; he warned them about the need for a suicide watch following the attack and the visit by Madam Zabini, who had reproached Draco for ruining the reputation of Slytherin House and playing a part in her son being marked out for reprisal. He also informed the Headmistress of Draco's desire for keepsakes from his dead friends, which request she fulfilled the very day.

"Suicide watch?"

Yes, and there was reason for it, too. Mr. Longbottom reported to her that he had been asked—in fact, offered a substantial bribe—to obtain firewhiskey in Hogsmeade, and given the patient's state of mind and the fact that he was being given Dreamless Sleep along with the healing Potions…

Andromeda knows that interaction too: Dreamless Sleep and firewhiskey, mixed in the proper proportions, guarantee a peaceful and painless death.

The Headmistress adds that Mr. Longbottom and Miss Granger stayed with Draco after the Dementor incident, until he was able to leave the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey said that she hadn't seen such a bad reaction to Dementors since the regrettable events of four years ago, when the Ministry had them roaming the streets of Hogsmeade.

***

Minerva McGonagall escorts her down the staircase and then there's a turn into a hallway that she doesn't recognize—well, the castle rearranges itself continually, she reminds herself, very like a living thing—and the Headmistress tells her this is the apprentices' corridor. The entrance is guarded by two Aurors, one of whom looks vaguely familiar to Andromeda—perhaps one of Nymphadora's classmates?

They pass through heavy wooden double doors, hinged with iron, into a dim corridor with three doors. The one furthest down the corridor is Draco's room, the Headmistress says. The Headmistress takes the lead, goes up to the door, and knocks vigorously. There's a pause, an indistinct voice on the other side of the heavy door, and then it swings open with a squeak of hinges.

The boy who invites them in, with a slight bow, looks nearly exactly like Lucius Malfoy at seventeen, so much so that Andromeda has to suppress a shudder. It's like confronting a ghost. He's holding a book in his left hand, his long fingers marking the place.

She extends her hand to him. "You must be Draco," she says. "We haven't met. At least that you would remember."

He stares at her, with those clear grey eyes that collect the light like water in a pewter dish. His father's eyes, but also his mother's: Cissy's eyes are such a pale blue that in the right light they look grey.

"I'm Andromeda Tonks," she says. He looks at her with polite incomprehension. "Your mother's sister." A fraction of a second, and then his lips curl into a sneer—about what she expected, too, from the Clone. Oh, yes, he does deserve that epithet; he's Lucius to the life—cold grey eyes in a fine-boned, too-sharp face. Rather too cheerfully she says, "The blood traitor, disowned, blasted off the tapestry. All that. But nonetheless your aunt."

He nods, puts his book down on the desk, and gravely shakes her hand; the sneer has vanished into a careful lack of expression. He gestures to the chair by his desk. She sits.

Behind her, the Headmistress silently bows out, closing the door behind her.

"Your mother wrote to me and asked me to come here," she says.

He looks at her, those grey eyes not moving from her face, as if he's seeking something there.

"It's a long story," she says, feeling uneasy for the first time at his silence. "We really haven't seen each other since we were young… oh, your age, or maybe a little older." She smiles, and knows it must look false, because her face feels stiff. "And I wasn't sure…"

He says, "You look like her. Like my mother, but even more like Bella." She winces—why didn't she anticipate that reaction from him? No, there's nothing for it but to plow straight ahead. She'll do her duty and then she can tell Cissy that she did it, and let fate take its course.

She takes the photographs out of the purse at her belt and fans them out on the table in front of him like a hand at cards. "Your cousins. Nymphadora, that's her with the pink hair. And her husband Remus, your cousin by marriage." His eyes widen as he leans forward to look at the pictures, and the light glints on his pale lashes and paler hair.

She indicates the next pair of pictures, the two portraits of Teddy. "And their son Teddy. That's him in both pictures."

Draco picks up the picture of Teddy and Harry. "That's Potter." His tone makes it all too clear that in his view, that's no recommendation.

Andromeda is unsurprised, except by the transparency of his revulsion. Lucius would have been unreadable, looking at the picture of someone he hated. "Yes, Remus and Nymphadora asked him to be Teddy's godfather." She looks him in the eyes. "He and his fiancee are helping me with Teddy."

He looks down, avoiding her eyes, and patches of pink appear on his cheeks. Oh, no, this one is far more volatile than his father, and quite a bit less of an actor.

Next he picks up the picture of Tonks carrying him and her broom, and the group portrait of Andromeda, Cissy, little Tonks and baby Draco.

"The last time I saw you," Andromeda explains. "Right after the last war. Your mother was so proud of you that she actually ignored our quarrel and came to my picnic to show you off." The tears start to her eyes and she dabs at them with her handkerchief; likely he'll think her a sentimentalist; certainly that's what his father would think, that man who loves no one but himself and maybe Cissy. "Nymphadora spent an hour taking you for rides on her new Cleansweep. You were rather disappointed when she stopped."

Draco frowns, then looks up from the pictures to meet her eyes.

"You can keep them," she says, pushing them toward him. "I brought them so you'd know who the rest of your family are."

Then she tells him what Headmistress McGonagall told her about his problems with everyday magic. She watches his body language; he frowns, bites his lips, and folds his arms across his chest.

She says, "Your mother has been asking what's wrong."

He stands up and glares at her. If this were Lucius, she'd have her wand out and be halfway out the door, but this is a child imitating his mannerisms; he hasn't that knack of dropping the temperature to subzero with a look.

"You haven't told her," she says.

He glares at her. "I don't want her to worry. There's nothing she can do. There's nothing _I _can do." There's more than a little whine in his voice when he adds, "Don't you dare tell her. You have no right."

He has that same way Cissy had, of sounding imperious and pleading at the same time. High-strung, too, definitely a son of the House of Black, and the sulky expression reminds her of Regulus.

And the problems with magic remind her… of Nymphadora, the year before last.

She says, very slowly, "I think you're assuming that the problem is permanent."

Draco glares at her, grey eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring and mouth compressed to a thin hard line: oh, very definitely the expression that Regulus had when he was getting the worst of an argument—except he's doing it with Lucius Malfoy's features.

She says, "My daughter—your cousin—had a similar problem. For the better part of a year, but it did resolve."

His eyes widen a little and the set of the mouth softens; he's curious, she guesses, but won't in a thousand years admit to it. "She was in very great emotional distress. She… wasn't herself. There were things she couldn't do, that year." Now _she's_ pausing and pressing her lips closed, because if she doesn't, the tears will take her. She takes a deep breath to steady herself before continuing.

"It was a very difficult thing, because she would not talk about it. Not to me, anyway." All that time Nymphadora was over there at Molly Weasley's house soaking up tea and sympathy, she'd felt shabby for resenting it. No one will ever know what really happened; she and Charlie might speculate, but absent Veritaserum or a voluntary confession, she'll never really know if Molly had anything to do with what happened with Nymphadora and Remus.

She looks at him. "Your mother is very worried about you."

He shakes his head, arms wrapped around himself, and the very rigidity of the posture stirs her pity. "Tell her I'm all right," he says. "I'm studying, I'm eating, I'm sleeping. All the things she worries about. I'm all right."

This is Cissy's boy, Cissy's child, and no doubt if Cissy were here she would be gathering him up in her arms and fussing over him. Andromeda has never cared for her sister's style of affection, which is fire and ice with a thick middle layer of spun-sugar: nothing nourishing, but it would be the fare he's used to. Luckily, she's a stranger, so there's no real expectation that she'll pat his back or stroke his hair or feed him sweets.

Finally she says, "I know this isn't very helpful, but try not to worry so much. It will come back." She smiles. "The noble and most ancient house of Black is notoriously high-strung. Do bear that in mind. You're one of us by way of your mother." She takes his hand, and she feels the tension in it; he's by no means resigned to her as a relative.

"Write to me if you need. I'm not so easily worried as your mother." She gives him a slip of parchment with her address on it: _Andromeda Black Tonks, c/o Molly & Arthur Weasley, The Burrow, Ottery St. Catchpole._

He reads it and his mouth twists in revulsion, and she has such a strong flash of Regulus that she's glad she's sitting down. Regulus, improbably resurrected… She isn't sure if the boy before her really exists, or if he's just a sort of canvas for all her family ghosts: Regulus Black, whom she hasn't contemplated in years, and Lucius Malfoy, and Cissy. Or maybe he really is Cissy's boy, with Cissy's vocal mannerisms and sense of entitlement and lovely sulky mouth, and her husband's sharp scornful features.

He takes the slip of parchment and tucks it into the book he was reading when she came in, and looks at her again. All very polite, but she knows that the interview is over.

***


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

In the first week of October, Andromeda finds herself quite occupied with correspondence. There's the letter to Cissy, of course, with a full report on her meeting with Headmistress McGonagall and with surly little Draco (not so little, actually; when she stood to leave, they were looking eye to eye, and Andromeda is a tall woman). The news isn't good, of course, but at least she can assure her sister that her son is being looked after properly. For good measure, she mentions that Nymphadora had had similar problems a year or so ago—not that it would have been any of Cissy's business if Nymphadora were still living—but she's dead and Draco is alive, and if the information helps matters…

… because what she strongly suspected under that defiance of his was fear, that if his mother knew that he was having difficulties with magic, she might no longer want him. Well, if he were approaching the crucial age of three, that might be the case, but of course he doesn't know that. He just knows, having picked it up from the atmosphere, that there's nothing more dreadful than to be a Squib.

She's really appalled at how ignorant he is, actually.

Then there was the letter to Justin Finch-Fletchley, giving her approval of the name and charter for the Remus Lupin Foundation. She had suggestions, as well, on some of the points in the draft charter, as well as questions on the composition of the board, but those details would be worked out later, she supposed. She was quite surprised, therefore, to have a return Owl back within the day, with answers to her inquiries and the draft membership for the board: she's to be honorary president—which means that she may choose whatever duties she prefers—and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley (his mother) is to be president, Justin the corresponding secretary and treasurer, Lavender Brown the St. Mungo's liaison and Bill Weasley the Ministry Liaison. There's an unofficial liaison with the Auror Department, but this person's name isn't to appear on the official documents since the negotiations thus far are informal.

Justin adds that he would like to recruit Hermione Granger as well, but she's busy at the Ministry and St. Mungo's, as well as her civil defense duties at Hogwarts. He's not sure exactly what she's doing for the War Crimes Commission, but they're apparently monopolizing her time. Rumor has it—by a rather surprising route—that she's about something in the Muggle world as well, though he hasn't independent confirmation of that. He's amazed she can do all of that; he's finding his work for the Foundation and for the civil defense quite sufficient.

The former Defense Association has been drafted wholesale to teach the Patronus Charm to wizarding households across Britain; Seamus Finnegan and the Patil sisters have been Apparating across the Irish Sea to teach it in towns across wizarding Ireland, north and south, although as yet there are no reports of rogue Dementors in Ireland. They're all stretched rather thin. It's rather like having the war back, except this time it's not clear exactly who or what the enemy is; there's the anti-werewolf faction in the Ministry, Greyback's werewolf packs, the rogue Dementors, and apparently quite a Muggle-born refugee problem. That poor devil Percy Weasley is handling that, more or less single-handed, because those bastards in the Ministry don't see it as a problem… well, he won't expatiate on that because it's simply infuriating to see the same faces about the same sort of trouble. The Pureblood supremacists don't seem to be fussed particularly by the passing of Voldemort; they're going to designate a handful of official scapegoats—not that he feels the least sorrow over Lucius Malfoy or Dolores Umbridge—and then go on with business per usual. Rather annoying, all things considered.

Andromeda smiles in spite of herself. The vigor of Justin's letter doesn't quite match the soft-spoken boy with the curly hair and the posh accent. She really can't imagine Justin Finch-Fletchley actually pronouncing the word _bastard,_ though he wrote it with a fine stabbing flourish. She _can_ imagine him saying "Rather annoying," to sum up the burgeoning disaster of the post-war.

She writes back to Justin that she'd been up to Hogwarts on business and had seen Hermione and Neville teaching the Patronus Charm to a mixed audience of Hogsmeade villagers and Hogwarts students. Neville is officially apprenticed to Professor Sprout now—had he heard that?—and from what she witnessed, he's turning out to be a rather gifted teacher. He has Remus' touch with frightened children; it's no easy task coaxing children who are victims of torture—and orphans into the bargain, in some cases—to find a happy memory strong enough to support a corporeal Patronus.

What she doesn't write is that by all accounts, Neville was a frightened child himself, and must understand his charges altogether too well.

***

She dispatches her return letter to Justin, by which time it's quite dark out; it's a good thing that owls are nocturnal, she thinks, as she dispatches Pigwidgeon on yet another flight. They've set a tentative date for the first meeting of the Foundation for the next week; now that everything is settled, there's no point in delay. As she goes about her preparations for sleep, tucking Teddy into his cot, she thinks about how good it is to have a project… and this one should keep her occupied for a while. She yawns and stretches, realizing that she's been scribbling away at the desk for rather longer than she thought.

Her last thought before settling in for the night is how quiet the house is—well, it's Friday night, and Ron, Harry and Ginny are at the pub in Hogsmeade to celebrate… something or other. She takes one last glance at Teddy's cot; he's already curled into sleep, a corner of his favorite blanket secure in the grip of his chubby fingers and his hair glowing a quiet green.

She slides gently into sleep herself—and she's dreaming about the old house, and Ted is alive once more, and he's working on the motorbike in the back yard, and there's Remus sitting on the back steps with her, and Nymphadora… Nymphadora is not there. Where is she? The clouds overhead curdle into green snaky rolls, and then resolve into the Dark Mark… not one, but a whole phalanx of them; the sky is tiled in glowing snake-and-skull motifs…

And then there's an unholy clatter—whence she doesn't know—but it's loud enough to make her leap up and grab her wand, before she's even aware of the transition from dream to waking.

It's dark. Teddy is murmuring in his sleep but somehow hasn't woken up.

And there really is an unholy clatter. It's downstairs; someone knocked something over, and then something else—metallic by the sound of it—and there's rather a lot of conversation down there…

She creeps to the head of the stairs, wand in hand, the dream convincing her that it might still be Death Eaters downstairs in Molly Weasley's kitchen…except by her recollection, the Death Eaters went in for rather more stealth than that. She can't imagine Lucius and Rodolphus and Bellatrix stamping about kicking over rubbish bins, or whatever it is they're about down there.

As she glides soundlessly down the stairs, one of the voices resolves out of the cacophony: "Longbottom, you dunderhead." It's Ron, trying to do an impression of the late Professor Snape, which is greeted with raucous laughter far out of proportion either to the accuracy of the mimicry or the wittiness of the sentiment.

Andromeda peers into the kitchen. The fire-irons are scattered all over the floor, and Neville Longbottom is in fact trying to pick them up, but he's none too steady on his feet, and he only has one arm free, since the other one is firmly around the waist of Hermione Granger, who is also staggering and laughing—at what, it's not clear. Ron is sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, raising an imaginary glass to the late Professor, while Ginny and Harry sit on the floor, helpless with laughter. Ginny is wiping tears off her face.

The five of them are rather disgracefully drunk, and they've apparently just come through the Floo from the Three Broomsticks. And it's two o'clock in the morning… no, two-fifteen. At least none of the clock hands point to Mortal Peril, but she's not sure what the status would be if Molly were to come downstairs just now.

Ron is the first to notice her. "Sorry, 'Dromeda," he says, inadvertently slurring her name so it comes out as Ted's old endearment. "They would have four rounds. Firewhiskey." He says to her, confidentially although rather too loudly, "Hermione is very, very drunk. And so is Neville. And it's past curfew so the Aurors wouldn't let them back into Hogwarts. So we thought they should sleep it off here."

Ginny says, "I'm not drunk. I can hold my liquor." She promptly drops her head onto Harry's shoulder. "But I think it might be time to lie down."

Harry leans against her blissfully, with his arm around her. "And I can hold my Ginny." He giggles and plants a very sloppy kiss on her cheek.

"It's two-fifteen in the morning," Andromeda says. "I think you all should try for a little more quiet…"

Neville has all of the fire-irons collected but one. He stands them by the hearth with exaggerated delicacy, then looks around for the missing one. Andromeda points her wand at it, and it leaps into place. Neville stares at her as if he's never seen anyone do that before. Well, at least none of them have their wands out; she wouldn't like to think about five drunken teenagers loose in Molly's kitchen doing sloppy spellwork.

No, she wouldn't like to think about that. There was that once that Sirius and James and Peter… no, she will not think about that. It was dawn before she and Ted had caught the last of the hedgehogs and Transfigured them back into forks and spoons. Not to mention the fire-breathing snuffboxes that had Peter helpless with giggles in the corner…

… much as Harry is giggling just now.

Neville turns to her and says, "I'm sorry for the noise." He adds, "We didn't think we should Apparate, you know. Not safe." His arm is still around Hermione, who appears to be falling asleep on her feet, as she leans gently against his chest. "Mmm," she says.

Andromeda thinks that brisk and efficient is probably the best tack to take. "Sit down, the both of you." Neville promptly obeys, sitting down on the long bench and carefully making Hermione comfortable next to him. He's rather less drunk than she thought, or at least he's making a little more sense than the others.

He says, "She had three glasses of firewhiskey. I think Harry and Ginny had four." He looks pained and worried. "I hope she's not going to be sick."

Andromeda is rummaging through the cabinets now, looking for the specific that she suspects is there; Molly's Potions stores are generally up to date… aha. Yes, Molly wouldn't make a point of it, but there's the neat flask marked 'Sobriety Potion.'

She takes down five tumblers, eyeballs the measurement and pours off a draft for each. Then she hands one to Neville, who drinks it off, makes the expected dreadful face (the stuff is truly foul) and then, somewhat restored, helps her to minister to Ron, Harry, and Ginny. Then he takes the last tumbler of potion and lifts it to Hermione's lips as she leans against him. Andromeda is struck by the tenderness with which he tilts her head back to make her drink, and then wipes the residue from her mouth.

Hermione wasn't merely drunk but exhausted as well, because she immediately falls asleep, her head dropping onto his chest.

Ron looks at the two of them, then looks at Andromeda. He's thinking about something, she can tell, but it isn't something he's about to put into words just now. He says to Harry and Ginny, "Come on, let's go to bed." Ginny, looking chastened, nods, and says, "But I don't want _her_ in my room. I don't like waking up with the curtains on fire."

Andromeda says, "She can stay with me." Neville looks at her gravely and nods, and the six of them go up the rickety winding stairs, Neville and Hermione bringing up the rear. Thank Merlin for Transfiguration; she makes Hermione a bed of sorts, comfortable enough, and she and Neville settle her on it. Then Neville says, "Thank you," and follows Harry and Ron down the hall to their rather too overcrowded room.

***

Andromeda settles under the covers with a last glance at Teddy in his cot—sleeping still, in spite of the noise downstairs and the disturbance as she and Neville lowered Hermione onto the makeshift bed on the floor. By then, Hermione had been barely conscious, only giving a sort of humming murmur as she found herself horizontal, and Neville gently moved her arm so that it wasn't splayed out across the floor but nestled at her side.

She had been embarrassed to see the look on his face—why? Something very sad in his expression, something certainly not meant for anyone else to see, as he gently relinquished her wrist and draped the covers over her.

Andromeda closes her eyes, and sinks back into sleep…this time with no disordered dreams, no more cloud formations of Dark Marks or Death Eaters in the Weasley kitchen. She wakes before dawn, as the first light is tinting the darkness blue, making it feel even chillier. Hermione is asleep, utterly motionless with one hand up by her face, fingertips curled in her luxuriant frizzy mane, the other still under the covers. Even in the faint light, Andromeda can see the dark circles under her eyes, and the thinness of her wrists. Under the collar of the T-shirt gleams a fine gold chain—surprisingly, because Andromeda hadn't thought that Hermione wore jewelry of any description—and in the shallow declivity below her ribcage, a lump shows through the thin material of the shirt and the sheet on top of that—some sort of pendant. The outline reminds her of an hourglass. Well, that would be a talisman indeed for such as Hermione, who's legendary now for doing far too much.

Teddy is still asleep, but he's pulled his favorite blanket into a wrinkled ball, and he's hugging it to himself as he sleeps, his little pink mouth working as if he's blowing bubbles or kisses. Asleep, he has the same deceptive sweetness that Nymphadora had at that age—the angelically peaceful little face that you would never believe had been demanding the impossible (or attempting it) during the day.

The beautiful thing about being up this early, aside from the October mist over the garden and the quiet in the kitchen, is that there is a clear path to the bathroom. She's used to grabbing a quick hot wash and dressing in haste; it's as if she's a young mother again. Teddy will sleep for a bit yet; it isn't until full light that he wakes up. She's still thinking about this as she combs back her wet hair and charms it dry, so that it floats soft and warm around her shoulders over the worn old dark-blue chamois shirt that had belonged to Ted. It was a little too big on her, but she liked the feeling of nesting in the heavy soft fabric…Over the years she's rather taken to certain articles of Muggle clothing.

She opens the door, still thinking about the tasks of the day, and runs full-tilt into Neville, who promptly apologizes. He's about the same errand, getting ready to make himself presentable to go back to Hogwarts. She nods and slips by him to return to her room, where Teddy is waking up, staring in fascination at the stranger on the floor.

"Gah?" he says.

Hermione sleeps on, unaware that she's being discussed.

Andromeda lifts Teddy out of the cot, steps carefully around Hermione, and gets him ready for the day.

On her way downstairs, she intersects with Neville once more, as he's emerging from the bathroom with his hair damp and fluffy and his face pink where he's been scrubbing it. Yes, in some respects he's still the little boy she remembers, with the round pink scrubbed face, trotting in the wake of his formidable grandmother. His hair is darker and longer than it was then… in fact, he's wearing it in a rather elegant hair clasp, she notices as he precedes her down the stairs, onyx and silver, not at all what she'd have imagined as his style.

And of course, like all the rest of the Order's children, he's rather taller now than he was then.

***

To her surprise, Neville starts the water for tea and without fuss begins preparations for breakfast. She didn't imagine that she'd see any of them this early, but he's a morning person, it seems.

Neville says that he'll have to go back to Hogwarts as soon as it's light and the Aurors will let them in through the gates. There's a project he's doing with his children in the greenhouses, and it's quite important to keep to routines with them. So much was in disorder in the last year… "And was Hermione sleeping all right?" he asks, as if it's the logical next thought.

Yes, Andromeda tells him, as far as she could tell.

Neville nods, "That's good," and there's a wonderful aromatic sizzle as he prepares fried eggs and sausage and toast for both of them. She gives herself up to the pleasure of being waited on, as Teddy nuzzles against her for his first meal of the day.

She asks Neville if she should wake Hermione, given that he's going back to Hogwarts soon.

"No," he tells her. "Let her sleep." There's a flash of that sad expression on his face, and he adds, "She works too hard and doesn't eat enough. We try to feed her up but it doesn't seem to be working." _We,_ it turns out, are Neville and the Hogwarts house elves, all of whom seem to be taking it personally that their charge won't put on weight.

Andromeda almost doesn't dare to ask it—shouldn't, really—but did she lose her parents in the war?

Neville makes a face. "In a manner of speaking. They're in Australia, and the Ministry won't let her bring them back until after the war crimes trials."

And then before she can even ask, he says that he sees his own parents regularly now. He's understanding why his Gran did that all those years, not that it was easy. Sometimes Hermione goes with him. She's there at St. Mungo's in the evenings, after work. Funny, what a small world it is; her boss on the War Crimes Commission is the consultant in charge of his parents. Senior Healer Derwent, expert in spell damage from Cruciatus and Imperius—much in demand lately.

He puts the plates on the table and then, as if remembering something, digs in the pocket of his jeans. Takes out a handful of somewhat crumpled leaflets and puts them on the table. "She gave these to Hermione… to give anyone she met who'd been under Imperius. In case you might meet someone…"

***


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

The newly constituted Remus Lupin Foundation has its first meeting on a windy October day; the salt spray is blowing from the sea, and Justin and his mother arrive early to admire the view a bit before coming indoors to set up for the meeting. Andromeda has arrived early as well. She walks along the cliffs behind Mrs. Finch-Fletchley and Fleur Delacour-Weasley, who are conversing in French. Fleur's face is alight; it's clear that it's been too long since she's spoken her native language. The wind blows her blond hair back and when they pause at the promontory over the sea, her face in profile is the face of a young girl, rather than a grown woman who's been running a field hospital and safe house for the last year.

Andromeda is walking between Justin and Bill, who are looking rather pleased with themselves; Justin says that he's amazed at how quickly things are coming together. He'd expected rather more difficulty initially, remembering Hermione's experiences with her house-elf welfare organization… well, everyone had laughed at her, of course, because of her infelicitous choice of acronym.

Andromeda doesn't know the story.

Justin gives her the essence of it—funny that it should have begun with her brother-in-law's house-elf—and then he says, "So then she named it the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare…" Yes, she agrees with Justin; Hermione has an unfortunate way with acronyms. Probably a matter of being earnest and young and somewhat literal-minded.

On the other hand, Hermione did know quite a bit about organizing. Justin would suspect her parents were likely involved in some sort of politics or other, because she knew all of the classic tactics: the subscription list, the badges, the organizing behind the scenes… if Hermione Granger hadn't turned out to be a witch, she might be well on her way to becoming a political power in the world of her birth. She has the requisite stubbornness and she's not in the least fussed by ridicule or hostility; it rolls off her like water off a duck.

Bill says that it doesn't hurt to have the name of a martyred war hero on the masthead. That's already winning over some of the Order stalwarts, especially the ones who worked with Remus and knew Andromeda and Ted.

She thinks about it, and the Order of the Phoenix was rather a family affair, wasn't it? The Weasleys and the Longbottoms and the Potters and the Tonkses and even a renegade Black or two…

Luna and Dean wave from the doorway; the guests are arriving, so it's time to come in and set up the room.

***

The meeting is a little more formal than before, but the thing that's most surprising is the identity of the unofficial liaison with the Auror Department; it's none other than Ron Weasley, the least political animal in the wizarding world, if his ex-girlfriend is to be believed. For all his junior status, Ron is busy doing his homework; he's already gone to the department library and looked up the procedure for werewolf bites.

Previously, that is before the war, the victim would be taken to St. Mungo's and entered on the werewolf registry, and then treated so far as werewolf bites can be treated at all… it's not clear what the procedure is for the biter, but that's moot since it's very seldom that the offending werewolf is captured.

These days, if captured, they're killed. And the manner of the killing has gotten successively more barbaric… Arthur has an addendum to his report, as he's been collecting incident reports from like-minded people in other wizarding enclaves. It's rather escalated from mere throat-slashing… to things that do involve silver knives, but take rather longer to kill the victim.

Justin shudders, though Andromeda notices that his mother does not. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is a Muggle matron of what Andromeda assumes are their upper classes; everything about her is understated though razor-sharp, every thread in the precisely correct place—soignee is the word that comes to mind—but under that gloss and gleam is a woman of hard-headed practicality and a remarkably strong stomach, for all she's not a Healer or whatever they call it in the other world.

What's troubling is that the atrocities have had the effect one would expect, which is that the werewolf attacks have become successively more organized and more savage. It's only a matter of time before they take up once more Greyback's program of deliberate propagation of their kind.

Luna says, in her dreamy and considering voice, that Fenrir Greyback had a very long journey to make before that idea had occurred to him… and Andromeda remembers that she spent four months in a house that was Greyback's frequent resort. It can't have been pleasant, and here she is musing over the renegade's motivations.

Bill has a copy of the Umbridge legislation with him, and Justin goes through the points of the complaint that they are going to bring before the Wizengamot, on the issue of Borderline Lycanthropoid Disorder. That should help out the war veterans in the short run, while they work on the more involved matter of convincing the Auror Department and St. Mungo's to adopt a new regime, and think about rehabilitating the werewolves.

Eighty percent of whom, at least from the sample in the casualties, are under seventeen, Lavender adds.

She adds that the good news is that the Healers are on their side, and the only hitch on the clinical side is getting sufficient production of Wolfsbane Potion, and they're already working on that. With sufficient funding, Professor Slughorn at Hogwarts will be more than willing to work with them, although he's already warning that for the scale they're considering, it would be advisable to start looking around for some likely assistants. He would recommend recruiting only from those who got an 'O' on their Potions NEWT.

The holdup, Justin says, is definitely on the political side. If they can get the practical folk—the Healers and the Aurors—behind the new protocol, it can buy sufficient time for them to pursue the long fight through the Ministry and the Wizengamot. Even if they do send Umbridge to Azkaban, that won't wipe out her poisonous legacy. The Senior Undersecretary was quite a busy drafter of laws, pernicious ones for the most part.

The meeting comes to a close with a consensus decision on the program… followed as usual by refreshments. If one is going to fight the good fight, there's no reason not to have good food and company while on campaign.

***

Dean Thomas has been silent through the entire proceedings, and it's only now, off to the side of the main gathering, that he looks Justin in the eye and says, "You know, none of them are going to thank you for this."

Justin frowns—"Them?"

"The Pureblood hold-outs," he says, then looks momentarily sheepish, looking at Bill and Ron and Luna and Lavender and the Patil sisters, all of whom meet the description of Pureblood. "They're not going to thank a Mudblood for anything."

Lavender says, "Blood status doesn't save you if you're bitten." She's visibly uncomfortable, though. Ron steps in and says, "But blood traitors were treated pretty much the same as Mudbloods…"

Dean looks at him. "So when you were at the Manor, who did they torture first?"

There's a dead silence.

Ron looks at him. "What are you on about, mate? It was only prats like Malfoy who made a big fuss of blood status. And the war's over."

Dean says, "Well, the grownups were taking it pretty seriously not six months ago, and I'm not sure they've stopped. And I can't say I like it, because I've already got used to that on the _other_ side of the border." And then there's another awkward silence, because Justin is looking uncomfortable too. Andromeda isn't sure what the matter of it is, but it appears to be something Mugglish; the rest of the Purebloods in the room are looking just as puzzled as she is.

Seamus Finnegan understands it; he's nodding. But he's Dean's friend and he grew up in the other world, too. "Damn shame to be the wrong race in two worlds," he says at length.

***

Andromeda had certainly had the notion that there were differences among Muggles; well, you couldn't be married to Ted Tonks and not know this, when Lily Evans was one of your baby cousin's best friends. Ted and Lily were living proof of the differences of class and caste among Muggles; at first that had puzzled her because, after all, weren't they all Muggles? But of course that was the foreshortening of distance; up close, of course, those differences mean something.

Justin and Dean both come from the mysterious realm that Andromeda knows as "Muggle London," (an appellation that Ted used to ridicule roundly because Muggle London outnumbers wizarding London by a factor of several thousand at least), but they could not be more different. Dean explains it to her: it's not only wealth but the accent, and not only the accent but the address, and not only the address but the color of the skin, and how long one's people have been in London—for that matter, in the British Isles—and a score of other things, all of which are fairly foolish when one comes down to it, but it's foolishness that's gone on for hundreds of years…

Dean says that he's not sure about whether he even wants to stay. At least in the other world, no one's tried to kill him—well, at any rate, they haven't been quite so systematic about it. And he's had a bellyful of the whole Pureblood-Halfblood-Mudblood nonsense, which makes even less sense than the crap he lives with over there.

Ron says, "So that's why you didn't sign up for the NEWTs group."

Dean nods. "I talked to Hermione about it, and she understood. I think she's been of two minds herself."

Ron says, "She's not thinking about leaving, is she? How could she just go back to being a Muggle after all that?"

"Nobody goes back to being a Muggle. We cross over the border and pretend. The only difference is that some of us can fake it." He folds his arms and frowns. "Until we have kids, of course. Then the game's up and there's owls." He says to Ron, "Hermione gave me some news this week. They changed my blood status."

Andromeda is beyond puzzled; she thought that was a fixed matter. Ron apparently has the same impression; he's shaking his head.

Dean says, "They found my dad. What was left of him. Hermione told me they had a Pensieve deposition from Rodolphus Lestrange, which was how they found the grave in the first place." He smiles an utterly mirthless smile—as close to a death's-head as a round-faced boy in his late teens can manage—and says, "We weren't a hundred feet from it, back in April. There's two or three mass graves at Malfoy Manor."

Ron still doesn't understand. "But why did Lestrange go after your dad? It wasn't just random Muggle-baiting?"

"Not random at all. My dad turned down a _personal_ invitation to join the Death Eaters."

***

Ron is plainly disturbed by the conversation, because after most of the household has gone to bed, he's still sitting up in the kitchen, staring out into the darkened garden.

Finally he says to Andromeda, "So, do you think Hermione doesn't trust us because we're Purebloods?"

Andromeda says she doesn't know, but if it's true what they say happened at Malfoy Manor…

Ron takes a deep breath and says, "Yeah, it's true." Squeezes his eyes shut, opens them, and says, "And Dean's right. They took her to torture first because she was the Mudblood." He manages the racial obscenity awkwardly; he's not used to wrapping his mouth around that word. "And she didn't say a _word._ She lied like a trooper. She would have kept it up, too, until Bellatrix killed her."

He stares out at the garden again, though it's too dark to see anything out there. "And Rita bloody Skeeter had to go on about it in the fucking _Prophet._ We had a fight about it, because I didn't want to be reading her name in the paper, and then she said she meant to be Minister so she supposed I'd have to read the paper with my eyes closed. And then I told her that was stupid…"

He paces to the other end of the kitchen, turns and says, "So Skeeter broke us up and then she had to write a big fat article gloating about it, and saying Hermione had been sleeping with Harry." He frowns at the floor. "And I _know_ that's not true, and it still bugs me."

There's the thinnest of veils between this kitchen and the one in which she's standing at the sink with three-year-old Nymphadora tugging on her robes and Sirius telling her about his latest romantic misadventure, the most recent grand passion gone sour…

"Mum thinks I should find someone from my own background," he says. And then he adds, "But I don't think the problem is who Hermione's parents are. That isn't why we're so different." He says, "Did you know that Neville's Gran actually talked to Fleur Delacour's parents about a marriage contract?"

The change of subject is dizzying.

"And she's awfully keen on Hermione. So not all of us are mad about blood status. And even if Fleur had said yes, she's a half-blood." Andromeda gives him quite a bit of credit for what he doesn't say next, _and she's a quarter Veela and the most fanciable witch in England--or near enough—and it would be completely unfair for _Neville_ to have scored a beauty like that._

***

Andromeda still isn't sure what to make of the conversation with Ron in Molly's kitchen, but whatever he meant to say, saying it aloud seems to have shaken something loose; he's suddenly focused, coming home with research on the werewolf protocols, and out and about with Bill when he's not at Auror training or civil defense training, teaching the Patronus Charm. That's Remus Lupin's real legacy to the post-war wizarding world, the fact that he taught the charm to Harry Potter, who in turn taught it to the Defense Association, also known as Dumbledore's Army. The unofficial chieftain of that army, Neville Longbottom, is promising to become quite as good a teacher as Remus himself, though he's apprenticed not to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor but to the Herbologist and Head of Hufflepuff House. So, one teacher and one pupil, and by natural propagation, wizarding Britain now has a hope of defending itself against the rogue Dementors.

It's Ron who finally clarifies why Dean had brought up the ticklish matter of blood status. It was the letter from the Auror Department, the offer of trainee status sans NEWTs, which was sent not only to Harry and Ron and Ginny but such unlikely candidates as Luna Lovegood (Luna having no known ambition to be an Auror), but somehow failed to reach Dean or Hermione or Justin. Dean had been thinking on it, and he'd done some legwork, and by the time he had polled everyone in the Defense Association, the pattern was clear: those of Muggle-born background had not been invited.

Interestingly, this very week, an Owl from the Ministry arrived for Dean Thomas. He fed the owl its treat, then opened the letter, which was an unaccountably delayed invitation to join the Aurors.

Andromeda has not seen such a thunderous scowl on such a young face in ages.

Dean Flooed Hermione at Hogwarts and Justin at his flat in London to ask if they'd received a letter. Hermione wasn't in, of course—probably buried in work at the Ministry—but Justin was, and no, he hadn't received any correspondence from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Harry was indignant, and he said he'd talk to Shacklebolt about it.

Dean said, "Don't bother." He tore the letter down the middle and threw the pieces in the fire. "If they didn't want me as a Muggle-born, they _really_ don't want me as a Half-blood." He stared at the burning parchment and said, "It's a Pureblood stronghold, isn't it?"

Andromeda answered, "Yes. Nymphadora had rather a bit of trouble… Muggle-born father and Dark family connections. Not sure which distressed them more, some days."

Dean's smile is tight and astringent. "I'd read it wrong, you know. I thought she had trouble because she was a _girl._"

Harry says, "It was supposed to be different now. I thought we won. And what about Shacklebolt? I thought he was all right…"

Andromeda remembers something she overheard Percy Weasley saying to Hermione at the picnic, "The Minister is not the Ministry." She knows that Kingsley Shacklebolt wouldn't have been the moving force behind that interesting selection of candidates, but there are layers between him and the scriveners who prepared the original letters—or disappeared the ones that would have gone out to the racial undesirables—and there's still feeling in some quarters that the Muggle-borns are magic-stealers of some kind; Rita Skeeter is already starting a whispering campaign in the pages of the _Prophet_ about the Muggle-born Menace, how they don't understand wizarding ways, ancient traditions and proper precedence…

So, for example, there are impertinent junior members of the War Crimes Commission—no, _assistants_ to members of the Commission—talking about imprisonment in Azkaban after the return of the Dementors being a _human rights violation._

Andromeda shivers, thinking about the debt that her sister and brother-in-law owe to that impertinent youngster—Hermione Granger the _Mudblood_—without whose strenuous objections (and the backing of her superior, who advised the Commission that otherwise no one would be sane enough to stand trial) they'd still be immured in the grey fortress in the North Sea.

Then there is Cissy's latest letter.

Andromeda may not have the Sight, but she knows the signs of a significant letter. For one thing, even rolled tight and sealed, it was already bigger than any of the others; the glowering Malfoy eagle owl didn't let her untie it until she had paid a double tribute of owl treats. (That bird reminds her of Aunt Walburga, somehow; it looks perpetually disapproving, as if it's sullying itself by the mere act of crossing into Weasley air space.)

She's not a heroine of melodrama who would gasp and faint at shocking news (for one thing, Teddy is perched on her hip at the time, and tugging at her hair as she reads her sister's missive), but she has to say that she stopped dead and forgot to breathe at the first line: _On the day that the Ministry came to decommission our perimeter defenses, the Healer in attendance was so good as to inform me that nine months hence, Lucius and I may expect a blessed event._

Cissy is pregnant.

***


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Nor is Cissy's pregnancy the only unsettling news in the letter.

The famous perimeter defenses of Malfoy Manor, which have not been breached in the three hundred and seventy years since the Manor was rebuilt on the charred ruins of its earlier incarnation, nonetheless will not make it to four hundred. The castle walls have been knocked down. Cissy has a detailed discussion of the Decommissioning, including the full membership of the committee that came to do it: the Healer in question, Boudicca Derwent (that name is popping up all over, isn't it), and a little snip of a Muggle-born scrivener, one Miss Clearwater, and that harridan Augusta Longbottom, who oversaw the majority of work as some sort of consultant.

About Augusta Longbottom, Cissy has _quite_ a lot to say. Apparently Madam Longbottom had the nerve to say that if Necromancy weren't universally banned, she'd indulge in a spot of it just for the opportunity to chat with the Malfoys' defense architect circa 1625. She went on to say that it was a shame to take down defenses that were the last of their kind in Europe, and if it were the Muggles, they'd be putting the house under something they call the National Trust and having tours—_tours!_ Can you imagine the impertinence of the woman, and she's old enough by far to know better, but witches of her sort don't get any polish with age. Far from it—Lucius was in a huff all afternoon after she told him _not to look at her in that tone of voice, because he'd been a fool to mix himself up with the likes of Tom Riddle. _

Cissy, like Aunt Walburga, knows her genealogies, and she's happy to trot out the family tree of Augusta Longbottom nee Chattox, and to retail some of the ancient scandal about her first marriage, and the sheer fluke that she married a Pureblood on the second go and all but accidentally preserved yet another wizarding line… not to mention her Lancashire connections who'd been fools enough to get caught up in a Muggle witch hunt _and _to get sanctioned by the Ministry of Magic.

Andromeda knows that Cissy has to be fairly infuriated to be repeating gossip that dates from the first decades of the twentieth century, not to mention the whole Lancashire Witches business, that goes back even further and has exactly _nothing_ to do with the matter at hand.

Very like Aunt Walburga that way; even the most personal annoyance was an insult to the honor of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black… only in this case the insulted party is the House of Malfoy, and in the case of Augusta Longbottom, the individual originally affronted was the long-dead Apollonius Paracelsus Malfoy, Lucius' grandfather, who disappeared in Central Europe in the time of Grindelwald.

The problem with Purebloods, she's more than willing to admit, is that they never _ever_ let it go. Even her own mother, Druella Rosier Black, was known to go on rants about scandalous behavior that went back a century or more. Though Bill Weasley assures her that _nobody_ holds a grudge longer than the Goblins, who cherish in memory yet green the injury done them by the heirs of Godric Gryffindor in failing to restore the Sword after its owner's death—sometime in the twelfth century, if she reckons aright.

And then there's the _last_ member of the committee (yes, Andromeda thinks, Cissy has Aunt Walburga's tendency to roam far afield when she has her dander up, and to lose the thread in her fury of indignation), whom they brought along, so far as she can tell, for the express purpose of offending: Potter's little Mudblood friend, whom the chit from the Ministry presumed to call upon to preside over _tea_ later that afternoon. There's something afoot she doesn't like; the girl seems to know all about what's amiss with Draco. When the Aurors brought him from Hogwarts for the last phase of the Decommissioning, he didn't have his cloak, and by the time they were done with the last of the inner perimeter defenses in the formal gardens, he was shivering, and then the little Mudblood looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and she cast a warming charm on him, all the while pretending it was _she_ who was feeling chilled.

And… there was some very peculiar byplay between the two of them. Which she doesn't even want to speculate about, but when Draco first arrived and saw this Granger creature sitting with the committee, he turned red and looked away. Not at all what she'd expect, given her son's years of indignation about the Mudblood getting the better of him at school.

Oh yes, and she'd appreciate if Andromeda would be discreet about the impending _blessed event_ if she happens to be in correspondence with Draco. That will take some preparing, and she isn't sure that she ought to drop that on him, given the delicate state of his health.

And—would she mind standing godmother to the child-to-be? Whom the Healer has told them will be a little girl, so they already have the name picked out: Hypatia Narcissa Lucia.

Furthermore, Cissy adds, she did talk to Draco about the letter he owes in return for Andromeda's kind visit to him at Hogwarts, and she was told that he hadn't written a reply yet. She apologizes for her son's remissness in social duty, and says that it won't happen again. She has spoken to him about the importance of respecting family connections. It will just take a bit for him to get used to the idea.

What she doesn't say, that Andromeda knows she must be thinking: it's going to take a while to get over the influence of Bellatrix, whom she can only imagine was a baleful if charismatic power in that household.

Yes, Andromeda can still remember, though it's like a memory out of another life, how much of an influence Bella exercised over her sisters. After all, she was the oldest sister, the example, the much-praised… and it was years before that stopped being the case. Andromeda's own childhood was overshadowed by Bellatrix the dark-haired and pale-skinned, Bellatrix the natural leader and good example, Bellatrix the fierce. How funny or ironic that would sound outside her family circle, the idea that the Dark Lord's torturer-in-chief was reckoned the _good example_ to her younger sisters. But that's family. What's insane in the public square might well be accepted wisdom inside the walls of the family home, and the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was no different in that respect from the ordinary run of mortals.

***

Family is complicated, as she's reminded in the increasingly frequent conversations with Molly.

With Molly, the confiding moments don't come in the early morning or late at night, as they do with Ron and Ginny, who seek her out then to ask the resident rebel their furtive questions. For Molly, it's in the middle of the day, when Arthur and the children are at work, and she and Andromeda, the two homebodies, are alone in the kitchen. At those times, Molly fixes a nice pot of tea and they look out at the garden, as they take a rest from one task or another.

On this occasion, a week before Halloween, Molly sits down at the kitchen table mid-morning, and asks her, as they're drinking the first cup, what news she has had of her remaining sister.

Andromeda knows to be on guard. "So Harry told you that we're writing."

"Yes," Molly says. Andromeda watches that plump face with its cupid's bow mouth and sharp hazel eyes. She isn't sure what tack to take, and reminds herself that she has resources; after all, Harry owes Narcissa a life debt, and there is the property at Grimmauld Place, if it came to the worst…

But that isn't the matter of Molly's curiosity, it turns out. "She's rather different from you, isn't she?"

Yes, she is. Narcissa always had been conspicuous by her place. As the youngest and fairest of three beautiful sisters, she had been aware of the regard of Pureblood society before she even had the words for it. Andromeda hadn't known, of course, that they were so described, and personally she had never felt particularly beautiful, not next to the dark star of Bellatrix or the blonde beauty of Narcissa. She was just the one in the middle.

Molly said, "I was the girl. So beautiful didn't enter into it."

Of course. Molly had two brothers, that commodity of which Ginny has an even greater abundance. And brothers aren't at all the same thing as boy cousins. With the cousins, for all the romping and mischief, there was always an undertone of flirtation and speculative glances. Sirius's absurd marriage proposal at age seven was really only a speaking-aloud of that which was in the atmosphere anyway.

Molly had her brothers, and their circle of friends, and all of them—brothers and sister and friends—were young warriors. When Andromeda listens to Molly's stories of those days, and remembers the narrow escapes and the patching-up in the field, she's surprised that her interlocutor didn't become a Healer or an Auror herself. How that bright-eyed, fierce young woman became the homebody she is now… well, that's a mystery. There was the bantering friendship with Arthur Weasley, which slowly evolved into mother-hen fussing, and then something else entirely. They were fighting a war, of course, with every expectation that any day might be their last. Andromeda remembers that it was just after the death of her brothers that Molly and Arthur left together one morning and came back married.

Their friends and family were shocked at the violation of protocol, but not at the match; death reminds you all too inexorably that there's only so much life anyone has. After Dumbledore was killed, Bill and Fleur had gotten engaged, as had Remus and Nymphadora. However any of that turned out, the younger generation wasn't so different from their elders. In fact, as Andromeda thinks about it, there isn't so much difference between Molly and her daughter Ginny as either of them imagines: there is that ferocity, of course, and a rowdy delight in being alive, and a hawk-eyed passion for their chosen beloved. Yes, that's what Molly reminds her of: not a mother hen, but a magnificent eagle, or some other bird that mates for life and swoops down to take what it will. There is actually very little hen-like about Molly, except perhaps for her red-gold coloring and her round figure.

"Your mum is fat," Andromeda's uncouth nephew had said to Ron. Well, she has rather a different word for that. Molly, in looks and manner alike, is nearer to Madam Rosmerta, who has been the ideal of generations of Hogwarts schoolboys; Molly just puts a different spin on the ancient art of hospitality. And—the obverse of that—she defends the sacred hearth with rather more than ordinary zeal, whether the perceived threat comes from the likes of Bellatrix Lestrange or from a prospective daughter-in-law she deems unsuitable.

Molly says nothing's turned out as she imagined it. She used to lie awake in bed long after Arthur was asleep, and think out her children's lives… but none of those possible worlds have come to pass.

Andromeda nods; she thinks about possible worlds more now that the war's over and Ted is gone. Ted wasn't always the only possibility; her parents had toyed with the notion of betrothing her to Lucius Malfoy, until he made known his _decided_ preference for the younger sister. As well, it could have been Sirius she married—her junior by seven years, but the nearest to her in spirit. (Funny that he'd proposed not merely marriage but elopement; even then he had been thinking of running away. And he always had been a rebel; on that occasion, he'd confided as well that he'd been sneaking out onto Grimmauld Place and playing with muggle children.) Seven years wasn't so much; why, Augusta Longbottom had been contemplating Nymphadora as a match for her grandson, who was seven years Nymphadora's junior.

As well, Andromeda's parents had talked of marrying Narcissa off to sulky little Regulus, if the match with the Malfoys hadn't come off. It had been touch and go for a while…

Oh yes, she'd wondered about that, said Molly. Hadn't there been a story circulating…?

Andromeda knows that story. Yes, she's wondered for years, given her mother's manner to Abraxas at the betrothal ceremony and then at the wedding, and there's always been comment about Narcissa's blonde hair, the first in generations of the Black Family. But as everyone knows, they worked it out with the Ministry, and after all, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Much as she disliked Lucius, at least the man had some self-control. The fall-back plan always had appalled her, the notion of Narcissa married to Regulus—two more self-centered, entitled children she had never known; their offspring could have sulked for England.

In any case, brothers aren't the same as boy cousins, and sisters aren't the same as girl cousins or schoolmates, and it was only the latter that Molly ever had. So she confesses at this late date that most of her notion of how to raise a daughter is… well, simply _not_ the way that you raise a son. But Ginny is turning out a fine Auror trainee; last week, Molly received a note from Kingsley of all people saying that her son and daughter were doing their dead uncles proud, and their living mother as well, he might add.

It's funny, Andromeda thinks, how puzzled Molly looks to hear her children praised, after years of requiring that every Weasley child not only be exemplary but extraordinary. There's her constant nagging, which was the manner of a woman with too much to do, whose battle with chaos domestic and foreign showed no signs of ever being over—and now she has these improbably tall, well-grown, well-regarded children who are being praised by the Minister for Magic. Never mind it's Kingsley Shacklebolt, their old comrade from the Order; that letter was written very much in his capacity as Minister. And Molly is very much puzzled by it all.

Andromeda looks at Molly's bemused expression and realizes that she never thought she'd see Molly Weasley at a loss when it came to her children.

Molly stares out the window to the late-October overcast over the garden. "Bill sent me an Owl," she says. "Fleur is … expecting." Molly's going to be a grandmother, and her first grandchild will be the son or daughter of the witch she hadn't wanted as a daughter-in-law. It was Nymphadora she'd really wanted, she says, if not to marry Charlie then Bill. She really couldn't imagine her with Percy…

What Andromeda doesn't tell Molly is that there was a time, just after Nymphadora finished Auror training, that she suspected Percy was sneaking sidelong glances of speculative interest… though it would be in another universe that such interest might have been returned, if Charlie was to be trusted.

Well, Molly had to say, Fleur did have her points. A braver witch she hadn't met. She did such a fine job with the safe house at Shell Cottage during the war, and Molly was quite sure that things would have gone very much worse had it not been there…

Her voice trails off.

It seems like bad luck, even now, to talk about those possible worlds. The victory still feels tentative, and the sense of peril has only shifted. The children of this generation are still under arms. Even Dean and Luna, who don't go to Ministry jobs, interrupt their solitary study to Apparate away from the Burrow every few days for a Patronus Charm training in some wizarding enclave. At first they were teaching the locals in Ottery St. Catchpole, where they still do refresher trainings every few weeks, but now they're being sent further and further afield. The Ministry hasn't made the new recommendation formal yet, but the sense is plain: they're meaning for every household in wizarding Britain to have a member who can cast a corporeal Patronus; because Dementors don't know sleep, there must be more than one, to cover the dark watches of the night.

Molly and Andromeda don't talk about the possible world in which things could have been worse, in which the protections of Shell Cottage were breached, in which one day Arthur failed to come back from his job at the Ministry, in which Bill didn't go into hiding quite so soon, in which Kingsley's Patronus didn't reach them at the wedding in time to warn them of the fall of the Ministry…

The possible worlds are manifold, and terrifying in their darkness. Now, as the year is closing down to the cross-quarter of Beltane, Andromeda finds herself more than aware of the gate between the worlds, not only between the living and the dead but between what might have happened and what did.

So they talk instead about the Halloween ball at the Ministry, the one that's been traditional for two hundred years, but which in the last generation has come to be a celebration of the defeat of Bella's Dark Lord on Halloween of 1981, when a one-year-old boy brought the generation-long war against Voldemort to a close… or rather, bought them a thirteen-year pause in hostilities.

Arthur will be attending, Molly says, and most of the young people, so is Andromeda thinking of it?

Andromeda says she's not sure, there's Teddy to look after, and after all she doesn't think it fair that the young people stay home to watch him when they could be enjoying themselves at a party. She means Harry and Ginny, of course, who in spite of their jobs are still quite conscientious godparents. She's never been all that keen on parties, she says, thinking of the party back in May to which she had declined the invitation, and then showed up as a herald of disaster.

Molly smiles at her. She has to say that she's not so awfully keen on those things herself. Even though George did buy her a rather nice new set of formal robes… Business at the joke shop is doing quite well in the post-war, for much the same reason as it boomed in the year before the fall of the Ministry. There's always good money in helping people to forget their troubles.

She's had her fill of state occasions. Arthur is in rather better odor at the Ministry since the war, and she herself been pointed out in Diagon Alley more than once as the Slayer of Bellatrix, a title she finds mildly embarrassing. One of Ginny's Auror classmates actually asked for her autograph! Imagine that, an old homebody like her.

Andromeda sips her tea, smiling a little at the picture of Molly the flustered celebrity.

Well, Molly goes on, there was that quite disconcerting occasion just last month, when they'd had a get-together at the Leaky Cauldron for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office and Felicitas Diggory, one of the field agents, had actually gotten tipsy and suggested… well, she doesn't want to say—but she turned him down, of course, because she's a married lady.

Andromeda smirks. Felicitas Diggory is a handsome fellow and he's at least ten years Molly's junior, nearer fifteen if truth be told.

At their lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, while Harry was in the loo, Hermione had told her a tale of a witch who got a marriage proposal after knocking a wizard off his broom in Quidditch practice… that she'd heard from a portrait at Longbottom House. (Andromeda can guess whose portrait it might have been.) "So it's more about power than good looks, isn't it?" Hermione had asked.

Well, yes, Andromeda had said, Pureblood courting has always been about power. Even the Weasley boys, who were rather more attentive to looks than the common run of Pureblood wizards, were still wizards and not he-Muggles. So indeed for Molly Prewett Weasley, if she's getting offers—romantic or otherwise—from wizards nearly as young as her sons.

And not a few witches, too, Molly says with a blush.

So, all things considered, Molly would prefer to sit out the Halloween ball, or the better part of it, though Arthur of course will have to go. She'll be more than happy to watch Teddy.

***


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

It's four in the morning, three days before Halloween, and Andromeda can't sleep. It's some combination of restlessness and worry, but even a full day of household tasks and another meeting of the Remus Lupin Foundation weren't enough to tire her. She slept six hours and then woke. Teddy is still slumbering peacefully in his cot; he's finally settled down to a sleep routine, for which she is grateful.

She sits up. No point in lying abed if she can't sleep; outside the windows is autumn darkness, and it's hours to dawn now. The meeting was a good one; Justin talked about the upcoming Halloween Ball and the opportunities for seeing people to lobby. He's a real politician, that one, Andromeda thinks with some admiration. It's not clear what else he does these days, except study for NEWTs and work for the Foundation and the civil defense. There's a NEWTs study group at Hogwarts now, since early October. Justin hasn't been in attendance, since he has a Potions setup in his London flat, but he has word by way of Dean and Luna that Hermione organized that, and to her credit even allowed that Malfoy creature to attend… then he said, his apologies, because he'd forgotten the family connection. Interestingly, for a newcomer, he's well on his away to having all of the troublesome family trees memorized.

Anyway, Justin hears that Hermione will be in attendance at the ball, and he intends to talk to her, and invite her to the first meeting in November. He understands by way of Arthur that the Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Creatures has designated her as its researcher. So if he knows Hermione, she'll have used that to advantage and learned everything she can on questions that may touch on their mission.

Molly had mentioned Hermione visiting one morning in early October to deliver the NEWTs revision timetables; she'd detained her for a brief cup of tea and asked her what her intentions were with respect to Ron, which struck Andromeda as odd when Molly retold it. She didn't say so, but it struck her at the time that Molly was attending to the barn door somewhat in arrears of the departure of the horse, since there have been rumors connecting Hermione with any number of other boys, from the lunchtime dates with Percy to the drunken excursion with Neville to the odd thing Cissy hinted about with her own nephew. It does make her a bit dizzy to think of her managing dalliances with three young men at the same time as a job at the Ministry, civil defense, the Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Creatures, and (if Justin is to be believed) some sort of job in the Muggle world. Not to mention whatever sort of machinations are necessary for retrieving her parents from Australia…

On the other hand, Hermione is young, and there's a war just finished, in which she had the exhilarating experience of escaping with a whole skin. Andromeda still remembers the dizzy elation they all felt at the close of the last war. There was dancing in the streets in Diagon Alley, flights of owls in midday through Muggle London… and behind closed doors, frenzied celebrations of rather another sort. She and Ted hadn't gotten out of bed for a whole day.

Four o'clock in the morning and she can't sleep, and she's remembering the sleepy soreness of prolonged lovemaking, with little Nymphadora in the other room singing the words to an indecent ballad that the Order members had been intoning in the second stage of drunkenness… Emmeline Vance knew an almost infinite number of such ditties, she remembered, and after two glasses of firewhiskey she was happy to teach them to all listeners, including not only Andromeda's eight-year-old daughter, but Kingsley Shacklebolt, whose powers as a wizard do not include the ability to carry a tune.

Four o'clock in the morning. Teddy's asleep, but she's still nervous enough of his safety—it's a habit by now—that she lifts him out of the cot and carries him downstairs, where she expects she will sit in the quiet and work on some of the paperwork for the Foundation. Reviewing money figures is surprisingly relaxing; it's an interesting puzzle, like the household accounts she took over from Ted when it turned out that the rebel daughter of Pureblood aristocrats was a better accountant than the son of the Muggle working class. The accounts for the Foundation are a more pleasant challenge because there's the satisfaction of sufficient funds. They actually can _do_ something; it's a choice not of what is to be given up but what is to be pursued.

And she's bred to the game of politics, to the shifting chessboard of family and House alliances. This time it's in a good cause that she's deploying the skills of a daughter of the House of the Snake—well, a cause more elevated than mere survival. They are going to get the odious Umbridge legislation repealed, and they are going to defeat Fenrir Greyback by integrating his werewolf packs back into the society that rejected them. Remus would have been proud, she thinks; and then she feels the pang again because he didn't live to see this, now that finally others are taking up the cause that he didn't have the strength to carry alone, not that he didn't try.

Unexpectedly, the light is on in the kitchen. Ginny Weasley is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea. Tea with a bit of something in it, it does appear. She looks at Andromeda, her face pale and set, the eyes hollow. Ginny has been having trouble sleeping.

She pulls her cup in closer, and the flask with which she had been dosing it. Andromeda looks at the label as she sits down—it's a calming draught, one of the ones from Molly's household stores.

Ginny sees her looking at it. "They told me I can't do Dreamless Sleep any more," she said.

Andromeda sits down with Teddy sleeping on her shoulder. Ginny smiles at him and reaches out to smooth his softly shimmering violet hair. "I envy him," she says. "I know I must have slept like that when I was a little kid, but I don't remember any more." Her face looks very old for a flash of a second, the face of someone who has looked into the abyss. For all it's unlined, it's not the face of a young girl…

Andromeda says nothing, but spreads the accounts out on the table.

Ginny knocks back the last of her dosed tea. She takes out a silver knife—Auror issue, Andromeda notes, the same blade that Harry and Ron carry in a sheath at all times, standard-issue since the end of the war. Ginny is looking at her reflection in the blade, and then balancing it idly on its pommel, in the hollow of her palm and then on an outstretched fingertip. Ginny's balance is quite remarkable, of course, but that's to be expected given her athletic prowess.

Finally she says, "So you knew Lucius Malfoy." It's not a question.

"Yes," Andromeda says. "He was my sister's husband." Interesting—they're both using the past tense. Ginny narrows her eyes.

"So what is he like, really?"

Andromeda says, "Cold. The man didn't speak to me for sixteen years. And that was with meeting me in Diagon Alley once or twice a month in all that time."

Ginny considers, turning the blade in her hands and watching the light glint off its sharp edge. "I think about killing him," she says, matter-of-fact as if she were discussing the merits of one set of boots over another. "You know what he did to me."

Andromeda has heard something of this, but she thinks it's best to let Ginny tell the story.

The bastard had thought it clever to slip her a cursed artifact—well, more than cursed, possessed, a diary with a bit of soul in it. Tom Riddle, age seventeen. When she wrote in that diary, it wrote back to her. And that had been a bad year; what with her brothers picking on her and her off to school for the first time. She'd never felt so insignificant in her whole life, and there was this comforting voice—well, words anyway—on the other side of that page. A book that was a friend. And then the blackouts started, and she woke with blood and chicken feathers all down her front, and it got successively worse, until she turned loose the thing that lived in the castle walls… opened the Chamber and let it out. And it was only pure luck, and Hermione's forethought to warn everyone to look around corners using mirrors, that spared her from being a murderer by proxy.

There are parts of her self that she never got back, she said, and all because that bastard, that utter black-hearted fiend, had given her that cursed book. Harry killed it, but not until after it had disgorged a solidified ghost, the seventeen-year-old Dark Lord, who had… done something to her.

Harry gave her a card, she said, for Spell Damage. That famous specialist, who does the Cruciatus and Imperius cases. She isn't sure, though, if anyone can help with the things that haunt her dreams.

She would like to kill him. Slowly. Chain him up in the place where she almost died, and _cut_ him. She says this with such a toneless voice and expressionless face that Andromeda is truly afraid for the first time, afraid in a way she hasn't been since she was last in the presence of Bella and Lucius. The difference, she thinks, is that they chose that path and she's not sure that Ginny did, exactly, but she does know that the voice she's hearing is that of a nascent killer. Someone who can imagine doing that—who can imagine, has imagined in detail, torturing her unspeakable brother-in-law, at length, not with Cruciatus but with knives. Muggle-style. There's a certain brute justice in that, she thinks, given how many of the other sort he's likely tortured…

Ginny toys with her knife some more, and then lays it on the table. She looks at Andromeda with wide, tearless hazel eyes. "I don't want to think about this all the time," she says. "I talk about it too, and there are other people who feel the same way about it. There's this one girl in the Auror office, McConnell, she's on guard duty at Hogwarts. She told me that she'd like an excuse to kill any of them. Her sister was killed by the Death Eaters during the war, and she doesn't see why the man who set it all in motion should walk free."

Andromeda isn't sure what to say to this confession, but she doesn't think she should break eye contact either.

Ginny says, "I lost bits of my soul. I still don't remember whole parts of that year, and then what I do remember…" She swallows and stares into the middle distance at something only she can see. "Then what I do remember… I trusted that thing and it almost killed me. And he said that I wasn't very interesting, little girls never were, and I was only of use for what could be taken … to make him come back to life. And your bloody brother-in-law gave me that book, _knowing_ what it would do. And he hasn't served a day of anything like punishment for that. All this time I've been living with that and he's been walking free and laughing at us."

_And encouraging his unspeakable brat of a son to laugh at them,_ Andromeda supplies from Ron's testimony. For the first time, she thinks about what that meant: Lucius trained up that little boy to be a thorn in the side, not of his enemies, but the _children_ of his enemies.

Ginny says, "I don't know what to do. Harry understands, a little, but there's nobody that can help when it's on the inside of my head."

There's a little icy click, remembering what Ginny said earlier. The Aurors are on guard at Hogwarts chiefly because of the attack on Draco; that's what Minerva McGonagall told her. And here's Ginny calmly telling her that one of his guards shares her homicidal fantasies, only it's not just Lucius but the whole family she has in her sights.

If anyone did well and truly deserve that sort of revenge, it would be her brother-in-law Lucius. Andromeda doesn't want to think about Nymphadora and Remus just now, or Ted, because that's the path she's sworn not to go down, now that the war is over.

Except it's plainly not over for Ginny Weasley.

"I think you should think very seriously about going to see that Healer," Andromeda says. "I suspect she knows a bit about possession cases, too."

"Harry said she probably did, or she'd be able to find me someone who did." Ginny picks up the knife again and balances the hilt on her palm. "It was Hermione gave him the card, you know." Just a hint of something in that all too level voice, then suddenly a hiss of flame: "He listens to bloody Hermione…and he _talks_ to her about me."

Andromeda says, "Do you have the card?"

Ginny pulls it out of its hiding place… interestingly, the scabbard for the silver knife. "Boudicca Derwent, Senior Healer, St. Mungo's Spell Damage Department." Andromeda frowns. "She's the one on the War Crimes Commission."

"Hermione's boss. And her Healer, too, Harry told me. He said she'd been seeing her too. And she's in charge of Neville's parents, which I guess isn't much of a recommendation. _They're_ not coming back any time." She blinks and there are tears on her eyelashes. "Or maybe I'm as bad off as they are and the only difference is that I know it." She says, "Aren't _you_ angry? You lost everyone."

Andromeda nods. "I'd be angry—only there's no point. The ones who did the worst are all dead. I don't want to spend the rest of my life being eaten up by it. I don't want them to win in the long run." She's not put it quite so clearly before, not having said it aloud.

Ginny says, "You know, if I really did that to him, I'd still feel the same… but at least he would know what I went through. I'd have made him feel it."

Teddy shifts on her shoulder and curls his tiny fists in his sleep. Andromeda leans over to kiss him lightly on his forehead, that smells of sleepy baby.

Ginny sheaths her knife and says, "Can I hold him?"

She stands to hand him across to Ginny's waiting arms, and the girl who was talking like an assassin a minute ago is now cuddling Andromeda's sleeping grandson and smiling as if she were drawing calm from having that small warm person curled against her.

Ginny holds baby Teddy while Andromeda does the accounts, and the only sounds in the kitchen are the scratching of quill on parchment and the occasional soft noises from the baby as he shifts position. Ginny stands up after a bit, and walks to and fro with him. Like her brothers, she's restless and fidgety, but now that has translated into decisive action. Andromeda imagines she is quite a promising Auror: she has the requisite keen senses, quick reflexes, eye for the Dark… yes, Ginny has quite a well-developed eye for that, having been swallowed by it at such a tender age.

And she thinks once more about how it all would have gone had her brother-in-law not mixed himself up in this business—or even, on the Dark Lord's return, had he raised the alarm. But that's another world, that lives on the other side of darkness, and not the one in which she lives. He has made his choices, and Cissy has confirmed them and stood by him, and now they are awaiting the fate meant for them…

…except there's another baby soon to be in the picture. It's never been discussed, but will they send a pregnant woman to Azkaban? That's Cissy's fear, she thinks, for the timeline is being discussed openly; the trials are slated to begin mid-March; the NEWTs will be held on the last day of February, to leave the examiners two weeks to review their decisions before their presence is required on the full Wizengamot. If Cissy is reckoning correctly, she will be giving birth in mid-June. Depending on how quickly the trial goes, she and Lucius may already have been sentenced by then.

Officially, of course, no list of defendants has been issued, but unofficially everyone is talking about how her sister and brother-in-law will be taking the blame for what scores of others helped to perpetrate.

She's lost the thread, now, and has to stop to look at the accounts again. She's been sitting there, quill poised in midair, for several minutes now. The floor creaks as Ginny paces, and she isn't so well-rested that she doesn't feel a little ache behind her eyes, a familiar feeling from when Nymphadora was young.

If she squinted, that could be her daughter, hair flickering from fuchsia to magenta, sleeping on someone's shoulder; it could be young Molly Prewett pacing with the baby. After Molly and Arthur, Andromeda and Ted were the first in their circle in the Order to produce a child, and Nymphadora had her share of baby-minders; the one singing nonsense songs to her in the kitchen might have just come back from a midnight duel with Death Eaters. Maybe it was inevitable that her daughter became an Auror and then a warrior for the Order; she was born into a war and reared in an armed camp.

Teddy is stirring now; he whimpers a little, against Ginny's shoulder, and she shifts him in her arms…

"Ow!" Ginny says, prying Teddy's fingers from her shirt front. "He's awake now, and I think he wants to eat. He just _grabbed_ me…" Teddy confirms this by bursting into a thin keening cry, the sound of a child who's been woefully deceived about the prospect of food.

She puts down the quill and accepts him from Ginny. "Oh, he'll do that if you hold him as if you're going to nurse him," she says. "He did that to Harry just last week."

Ginny glances up at the clock. "I'd better go get dressed," she says, "at least before the rest of them wake up and want the bath."

Teddy doesn't comment; he's in the midst of his breakfast, settled in the crook of Andromeda's arm and fastened to her by his soft, demanding little mouth. Yes, Nymphadora nursed the same way, fiercely, as if she knew it were a question of her life, and she wasn't letting go.

***

**Author's note: **Ginny's revenge fantasy was inspired by the brilliant fan-fiction _Knives_ by Elizabeth Culmer (on fanfiction (dot) net—see my Favorites for a link), which the reader should be warned is an intense experience.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

By Halloween night, Molly has rather changed her mind. Arthur has reminded her of the people that will be expecting to see her at the ball, and the chance to show off the new robes George has bought for her.

This is the first time that Andromeda has seen George's face brighten since the battle. Five months, he's been gloomy and morose, scowling more than you'd expect from a man who makes his living from jokes and capers. Tonight, for the first time, there's a spark of his old mischief. "Try them on, mum," he's saying, holding them out at arm's length a great swag of dark green velvet, forest green with a high flared Spanish-style collar and a narrow but plunging decolletage. Molly bows to his request, and emerges from her room twenty minutes later, looking astonished; she's had a look at herself in the mirror and it's said something flattering, no doubt, as Andromeda herself is too astonished to do.

Molly is red and gold and silver in those robes, whose dark green sets off the embroidery (red and gold, of course) that otherwise would be too flashy; as well, it heightens the red and gold and silver of her hair and the glow of her round rosy face. Andromeda sees Arthur's eyes light as well; he's seeing a woman that none of them have seen since the children were young: Molly Prewett, the spitfire of the first Order of the Phoenix…

Well, that settles the question of the ball. Andromeda isn't too disappointed, but Ginny says she'll watch Teddy for the first hour or so if she'd just like to pop in…

After all, Ginny says, she's just a trainee Auror, and not expected to be in attendance; Harry and Ron will be circulating, but she can join them later. Molly gives her daughter a sharp look at this. Andromeda wonders if the question is that you don't leave your intended on his own at an affair like that… well, Ginny would appear to be thinking of what it's like not to be able to attend the party, and though Andromeda would be fine with an evening of quiet at the Burrow, it's plainly a gesture of thanks on Ginny's part, no doubt for that four a.m. conversation. Interesting how Ginny took for granted that Andromeda would receive with aplomb the thought of murdering Lucius, even of torturing him. Well, that's the reputation of the House of Black, she knows, and if she is to be completely honest, she wasn't all that shocked. Not that she's had the thought—no, she _has_ had the thought, would have had it, more than once, meeting that arctic sneer in Diagon Alley, except that Ted laughed her out of it. Ted, who told her that her family were in the Middle Ages and needed to get over themselves, or at least get a toehold in the Renaissance if they couldn't manage the Enlightenment. Yes, in so many words.

She tries to imagine Walburga Black's reaction to that pronouncement. No, Ted wouldn't have bothered saying it to Walburga; if anyone would say that, it would be Sirius; love or hate, he actually cared what his mother thought. Ted didn't give a rip; if anything, he thought the whole lot of them were barking mad, with their treasured family tree and their obsession about who had married whom back in the twelfth century.

Andromeda Tonks could laugh at Lucius Malfoy behind his back; Andromeda Black rather thought that Ginny was right and that a dagger in the throat might be the more satisfying course.

"You'll get to see everyone," Ginny is saying. "Come on, you must have some nice dress robes."

She does, in fact; they're still packed in that trunk she brought from home when she knew that this was going to be her home at least for a while. They're a bit like Molly's, of course, because they're in her old House colors—a green so dark it's almost black, and silver that's closer to grey, the silver of a cloudy sunrise, iridescent with tones of pearl and smoke. Just a bow in the direction of that ancient affiliation, because however one's alliances change later in life, there's the house of one's birth and the House into which one is Sorted.

Ginny smiles to see her come down the stairs arrayed in those robes. "You look _fanciable_," she says, and then puts a hand to her mouth, no doubt thinking it's not quite the thing to say to a recent widow.

"It's all right," she says to Ginny, "I'll take it as you meant it."

So she goes to the ball, for the first hour or two, which after all is the part with the pageantry; both during and after that comes the politicking. She sees the first dance, the traditional circle, led by the Minister for Magic, and the young people eyeing each other at the side tables, since that ritual is largely for the elderly dignitaries who are the first to leave. In their honor, the first hour of dances is minuets and quadrilles, for this is the crowd in whose youth the waltz was still scandalous. The first generational changing of the guard is at the one-hour mark, when the band strikes up a fox-trot and the generation of Madam Marchbanks is succeeded by that of Augusta Longbottom—the cohort that was young with the century. Augusta and her grandson Neville lead that one; Andromeda is pleased to see that the boy has become a passable dancer. She supposes that a year of guerrilla warfare will do wonders for one's coordination. There's Hermione and Ron and Harry, at different points in the ballroom, all sitting this out because it's not their generation and they never learned those steps. Fleur and Bill are on the dance floor, though, and Justin is dancing with Luna Lovegood, who plainly doesn't know how to fox-trot, but is improvising something that more or less fits the meter, as the unflappable Justin smiles and nods, ever the gentleman. It reminds her of the traditional singing of the Hogwarts school song, each to his or her own tune.

She's forgotten how much fun it is to watch, and it's so much easier now. In her childhood and youth there was too much at stake; in childhood, it was dodging Bella's teasing and hexes (and watching lest she make off with the lion's share of the treats from the refreshment tables) and then, in youth, the whole drama of forbidden romance… Now, as in childhood, there is still politics, which has changed only in the more refined forms in which it plays out, but now she has the luxury of standing at the edge to observe.

There's the waltz, and now the couples change again; Horace Slughorn is dancing with Hermione—and yes, if she knows her old Head of House, that's politics being transacted on the dance floor; as they turn through the figures of the dance, it's plainly that, for Hermione has on her face that characteristic expression of _problem-solving_; there's something she's trying to work out as they're dancing and talking. She does waltz quite creditably. Dean and Luna are sitting this one out, and talking off to the side; Luna has taken out her wand and is sketching little dancing people in the air… and Dean is laughing at something she's saying.

And then there are the intercepted glances… Parvati is teasing Seamus, who takes to the dance floor with Padma, and looks over his shoulder at one sister while waltzing with the other—the serious sister, who's twitting him about something; he's laughing and trying to look appropriately dignified. Hermione is still dancing with old Slughorn and there's a moment when she looks across the dance floor and Neville, standing next to his grandmother as she converses with Healer Derwent, locks eyes with her and smiles that broad ingenuous smile that lights up his face. Not a strikingly handsome boy, Augusta's grandson, until he smiles.

Harry and Ron are standing at the right and left hands of the new Head Auror, and Andromeda is wondering where the Minister is, for she hasn't seen him in a while…

He's at her elbow, apparently, and asking her for the next waltz, given that he's released from ceremonial duties… for old times' sake, then…? Because he still does remember Nymphadora's rendition of that naughty ballad, the one Emmeline so liked… Andromeda laughs, _a laugh and a pang_, and knows that Kingsley feels the same. Everyone is looking quite festive—Slughorn whirls by them resplendent in green velvet and silver watch-chain, Hermione glowing in her periwinkle robes with her hair twisted into a loose chignon; Seamus and Padma and Parvati now doing something impossible that's _definitely _not a waltz, the three of them arm in arm.

"You like to watch," Kingsley says, with his deep mellow smile.

"I wouldn't have been much in intelligence if I hadn't," she says. "And those Slytherin habits die hard."

He laughs and they whirl across the dance floor. She'd forgotten what fun he was, Kingsley the serious statesman and terrible singer and really quite respectable dancer. You wouldn't think the people in this room have just come through a war and are living under a state of emergency, but she remembers the parties they had in the first war. There was no sign it was going to be over, ever, so you didn't put off having what good times you could…

And there are Molly and Arthur, spinning away in each other's arms and looking like the love match of the century, which she supposes they are. They've both got that glow on them, that's something more than the ruddiness of physical exertion—cheeks rosy and eyes bright, so you forget the lines in their faces and Arthur's thinning flyaway hair, and if you knew Molly Prewett and Arthur Weasley in the terrifying days of the first war, you see them now as they were then—warriors and lovers.

"You can romanticize it all you like; the first war was horrific and the only way we stood it was by being young," she says to Kingsley. _Those who made it through alive, that is._

"We _are_ still young," Kingsley says.

"Well, at least not as young as we were. Not when there's a generation behind us," she adds.

In this room alone, there are at least four generations ahead of them, before either of them can claim to be old. After all, Madam Marchbanks was born the year of the English victory in the Crimea, and she is still spry enough to be looking forward to another round of NEWTs examination at the end of February, before taking up her place on the Wizengamot for the war crimes trials.

"Even if it is the North Americans and Central Europe shoving it down their throats," Kingsley says, "but of course that's not for attribution."

There's hardly any conversation she's had with Kingsley since the war that _has_ been for attribution.

***

Andromeda returns to the Burrow through the Floo around ten o'clock. Ginny is already in her dress uniform and ready for the changing of the guard. Teddy is sleeping peacefully in her arms, his hair a lovely emerald green. Ginny smiles, "Your old house colors," she says, and hands him off without waking him. His warm weight settles onto her breast and he sighs in his sleep.

"Have fun at the ball," Andromeda says, as Ginny reaches for her handful of sparkling powder. "All your old friends are there." Ginny smiles, and disappears in the green flare.

The house is quiet; she's the only one here. Somewhere under the eaves, something has roosted, in spite of the peril of marauding owls; she hears a soft cooing from time to time. The wind is rising, and she walks with Teddy because she isn't ready to settle down to sleep yet, and he won't know the difference. He has Nymphadora's knack for peaceful slumber no matter where he is; Andromeda remembers her daughter sleeping in a disused drawer, on the couch, casually slung in the crook of the elbow of more than one returning warrior—Emmeline Vance, now dead, and Kingsley and even ferocious old Moody—little did he know that this little girl would grow up to be his protégée. How fast the time has flown and fled…

Those are the thoughts indeed, for the evening when the gate opens between the worlds, and if the Old Ways are to be trusted, remains open through the eve of the New Year. In any case, it's the time of year that for her has always been most haunted by the past.

She's fulfilled her duty to the past, though, and visited her surly little snip of a nephew, and received as yet no acknowledging note.

The wind is rising, and the floors creak as she walks from room to room. It's Halloween night, the opening of the dark passage into winter. Teddy dozes on her shoulder, and she remembers what it was the first time, in the mid-1970s, when Nymphadora was a baby. That was the height of hostilities, and there were days she wondered why she and Ted had done it… but you can't wait forever to live; you can't put it off. Look at Frank and Alice, who'd been careful and prudent and finally decided that they would just have their child, war or no war, and they were quite a bit older than the rest, in their thirties. Frank had been the first and last child of his parents' marriage, the son of a widow and a widower of the Muggle Great War… who'd met in the midst of the Grindelwald war.

War after war, she can count backward through the century and there wasn't a time that they weren't at war, or under threat of such.

And then there was _that_ Halloween, the one she won't soon forget, which marked the joyous end of the last war and at the same time … at the same time, the loss of the last member of her family who even talked to her. Sirius: now dead, and then reckoned the betrayer, James and Lily dead, Peter assumed dead…

Yes. There had been a shocked silence, that's what the first twenty-four hours were, because no one was quite sure what had happened, and then the picture began to resolve itself. No worse than the Muggles, who sometimes took weeks or months to decide that one of their wars was over.

Madam Longbottom had said, of that and of the war in general, "It's our common lot with the Muggles, and there's no escaping it. Magic only gets you out of so much."

And she would know, wouldn't she?

She remembers the elation, and then the last of the casualties. It was at St. Mungo's that they'd had that conversation, Madam Longbottom and her husband Frank, whom Andromeda remembers as one of the most cheerful men she has ever known, very like Ted in that way. And with them, little Neville, who didn't understand what was happening, only that his grandfather was holding him, that big sturdy man who usually radiated reassurance but that night was more than unsettled. Neville would sleep for a bit, and then wake up testy and nervous. Even a year-old child knew that something was wrong.

Frank senior and Augusta were sitting there, calm as you please at least on the surface, but Madam Longbottom explained they had been through worse; she and Frank had met while she was driving an ambulance during the Muggle War… the one that ended in '45, and coincided with the worst of the Grindelwald business. Hard to tell them apart, at times. Why, she'd had to take the news to the family of a young Auror who had gone up with her partner to check out a cell of Grindelwald's people in Manchester and had been killed, not by Dark wizards, but by the bombing that night.

She's reminded of that long-ago duty, of course, because the Healer who comes to consult with them, after they have been at the hospital for hours, is the sister of that Auror. Funny thing, Madam Longbottom said, how they had named the daughters. The one named after the goddess of health became an Auror and the one destined for the other fate by being named after an ancient warrior queen was the one who ended as a Healer. Well, nothing for it, once her sister was dead; she went from being the dynastic fall-back to the name-bearer, and there was no way that the name-bearer of the Derwent line was going to be anything but a Healer. Nearly everyone on the St. Mungo's staff is related to the Derwents by blood or marriage; young Hippocrates Smethwyck, the one who likes to try out Muggle methods, was a Derwent before his marriage to Lydia Smethwyck.

Andromeda can't remember if Boudicca and Hippocrates are brother and sister or just cousins. The Blacks never made much of families like the Derwents; for all their ancient lineage and skill at their craft, they were still in something depressingly close to _trade_.

She still remembers the look on Augusta Longbottom's face: stoic resignation, though on those hawklike features, it looked outright belligerent. The war was not over for her, nor would it be for the lifetime of the children she had just lost, or the grandson who was a babe in arms but to whose care they eventually would be commended.

She had been quite glad that she'd put herself in some kind of order when she got the Floo call; well, that was her upbringing as a daughter of the Noble and Most Ancient House. Ted might have rolled out of bed and gone over there with his shirt untucked and a two days' growth of beard on his face, but she made herself presentable because it was St. Mungo's, and it was Madam Longbottom.

It was altogether too much like her wartime duty: watching and waiting, so that someone else might act in time, except now there was no more action, nothing that any mortal could do. She'd been sent there only to sit with them. The Healers were about their business, assessing the extent of the damage, and the Aurors were about theirs, questioning the culprits. Not that this was much of an interrogation; the three of them, the Lestranges and Barty Crouch, had been both candid and unrepentant, and remained so from their arrest through their sentencing to Azkaban.

Andromeda hadn't liked to think about that, how she'd been sitting there with the next of kin of her sister's last victims… well, last victims of that war. Pure destruction, was Bella, as if she had reshaped herself into something like Ginny's silver knife, a sharp-edged weapon in the hands of her Dark Lord.

She still remembers how she tried not to think about Bella while she was sitting next to Madam Longbottom. She still doesn't know if it was Legilimency or just long experience of life, but Augusta Longbottom turned to her and said that you don't get to choose your family. There was enough to do without being fussed about the things over which one had no control—and mad sisters were definitely one of those things.

And then she'd felt worse, for the mother of her sister's victim having to reassure _her_.

The end of the last war had been dancing and singing and flights of owls and mad lovemaking and then this vigil with Augusta Longbottom at St. Mungo's, because she was the first one they'd found at home, and it's not as if the Order were official then; it was just a crazy band of young people (and some older ones) who'd decided that they were going to hold off this latest Dark Lord until … until others, more powerful or at least more numerous, took an interest and intervened. Except it never had come to that—it had been a _baby_ who'd stopped Voldemort.

And then there was _after the war_. The first thing that her supposedly repentant brother-in-law did was to make a substantial donation to St. Mungo's, with particular attention to the Spell Damage department. For all she knew, Boudicca Derwent's research on Imperius and Cruciatus damage was carried out using Lucius Malfoy's money. Of course, that's the way such things usually went…

The house is quiet. She remembers the first Halloween ball of the peace, of the last peace, to which her brother-in-law and sister showed up, fresh from their vindication in the Crouch trials and Lucius' remaking of himself as a philanthropist in medical and educational causes. She remembers Arthur Weasley fuming about it, though the one who had the most to say about it was Molly. She had been the one then who took it personally; to Arthur it was just politics, ugly but expected. Of course, he hadn't been working long at the Ministry then, and hadn't fallen afoul of Lucius yet in anything other than a general way. That changed, of course; Arthur stuck to his principles in the line of duty, and Lucius resented anyone who couldn't be bought, and he never could keep his opinions to himself when it was a matter of people poorer than himself; each social occasion, each Ministry ball, was an opportunity to rub salt in that particular wound while looking like the picture of beneficent generosity.

Cissy and Lucius had been a fixture at those balls and gatherings, in the days when they were the major donors to St. Mungo's. Justin has stepped all but seamlessly into that role, and Andromeda's suspicion is that he's better liked. Well, nearly anyone would be, and Justin is well-mannered and soft-spoken. She understands that the Muggle aristocracy has been encouraged by the example of several twentieth-century revolutions to pull in its fangs somewhat; no echo of those disturbances ever penetrated to the isolationist circle headed by Lucius.

Teddy has dropped off into a sleep so deep that she has a reasonable hope that if she put him to bed now, he'd sleep the night without being disturbed. She's nervous of being separated from him longer than a few minutes; she is still remembering the werewolf attack on her home. Had she then left Teddy unattended in his room, the wolves would have killed him …

No, she won't think about that, because the war is over and Teddy is safe in her arms and there's a perfectly acceptable couch down here, on which he can be laid to sleep while she waits until she's sleepy enough to go to bed.

Which, it turns out, is much sooner than when she actually goes to bed; she falls asleep before the fire on that very couch. She wakes with the flare of emerald on the back of her eyelids, and startles to see Harry coming through the Floo. Interestingly—alone. Neither Ginny nor Ron is with him.

"Oh, hello," she says to him, and then asks if he had a good time at the ball. He says that it was quite awkward; he's not this famous person that they all think he is. No, he put that wrong; famous he most undeniably is and has been since he was eleven, but it's more he means powerful. There are things he can't do a thing about, and he wishes that weren't so...

He's sitting on the other end of the couch, and Teddy is slumbering peacefully between them, most of his fist shoved in his mouth. Harry smiles and says that at least when he looks at Teddy he doesn't have regrets about his part in the war, although he wishes that Teddy's parents had come through it all right. He's nervous to be trying to repeat Sirius' feat. At least he doesn't have to do it from inside the prison walls.

He's just as haunted by the anniversary as she is, she thinks, for all he doesn't remember it. He'll never be able to relax and treat this either as the secular holiday of Halloween or the sacred one of Samhain. It will always be the night that he lost his parents.

Andromeda watches him watching Teddy. Finally she asks him where Ron has gone.

"Shell Cottage," Harry replies curtly. With Bill and Fleur and Lavender and Justin, it turns out. They had some sort of business to talk about for their werewolf club. His expression says that he thinks there might be more to it than that, but he's not going to speculate. Instead he starts to talk about the three of them, him and Ron and Hermione, and how they've been at odds on occasions in the past but never so much as now. Ron went to Shell Cottage and Hermione went back to Hogwarts, departing with the Headmistress a little after midnight, and he's come back to the Burrow because where else is he going to go…

This is the most communicative Andromeda has seen Harry in a long time. It's usually Ron who comes down to talk to her, or else Ginny. And where is Ginny?

Still at the ball, apparently. She's been talking to Dean and Luna, and they were all having such a good time that he thought he'd rather just leave them to it and come home.

Strange choice of words. He's the proprietor of Twelve Grimmauld Place, but it's the Burrow he thinks of as home. And if truth be told, he says, it isn't him who has a claim on it but Hermione, but nobody is going to forgive her breakup with Ron, and he rather wishes they'd never gotten involved in the first place. It had rather complicated things.

And if it came to it, Hermione is serving in Ron's place. They wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for her duties at the Ministry. She has no money in the wizarding world, did Andromeda know that? Gringotts takes everything; he only tonight talked to Bill and found that out. So here he is, awash in Galleons, and his friend (he almost said best friend, except that title is plainly reserved for Ron) is working away at two jobs. Because the Goblins don't forgive, and it will take time before the mess is sorted out between the Ministry and Gringotts for the war damages, and meanwhile Hermione is making a show of good faith that they aren't going to run out on the debt. He has no idea what they're paying her, but she's still wearing the same dress robes she's had for two years, or was it three? Someone at the ball commented on it, and of course he understood they meant that wasn't she rich in her own right or at least the friend of the third richest wizard in Britain…?

The war damages… Andromeda isn't sure she understands.

Harry explains. During the war, they had to break into the Lestrange vault to get something that was important to defeating Voldemort… he plainly doesn't want to specify more, and she can't say she blames him, because she knows that Dark Magic was involved; after all not everyone is ignorant of what a Horcrux is, and the idea that there was more than one of them…

In any case, something went awry… Griphook, the Goblin who had guided them in, had changed his mind, and betrayed them, because he thought Ron meant to cheat the Goblins out of the Sword of Gryffindor. On their way out they made off with the blind watch dragon and blasted their way from Gringotts underground to the surface…she's heard that bit, no doubt?

Yes, she says, it was quite spectacular.

It was quite _expensive_, he says, and the Goblins called it in. That was the meeting in early summer up at Shell Cottage. The Goblins had delegated Bill to deliver the bad news. He rather suspects now that it was a test of loyalty. Bill did his part, and Charlie retrieved the dragon, which took some doing and ran them into charges for Obliviators… well, that's another tale. Then the three of them were presented with the full charges, and it was made quite plain that if Harry's and Ron's part weren't paid, they would seize Twelve Grimmauld Place and the Burrow. Hermione was in the clear for that sort of thing, because of the Statute of Secrecy; her parents were Muggles so the Goblins couldn't touch their property. So he paid his share and Ron's… well, with the hope that once the war damages were sorted out with the Ministry, there might be some compensation…

…_from Lucius bloody Malfoy_, as Ron might put it. Harry's more polite, but the animus is no less. He doesn't like being caught in between; he could have paid the whole thing but that would have been ninety percent of the Potter-Black assets, with no assurance that the stake would be repaid by the Ministry when the time came, and there were Teddy's expenses to be covered, and Harry took the role of godfather as a family responsibility and not a titular honor.

As had his own godfather, her cousin Sirius…

… which left Hermione to guarantee what was left of the debt. Which is considerable, and this now has driven a rift between them that he's not sure will ever heal. Money is a curse, and not having it is more of a curse. He's pretty sure that had something to do with Ron breaking up with Hermione, the guilt over having his share covered, though the initial spark was her reiteration of what she'd said at the time: he shouldn't have tried to be clever and dodgy with the Goblins.

So Ron's gone up to Shell Cottage to have a talk about something to do with the Remus Lupin Foundation, but he also rather suspects that Lavender has something to do with it. They've been working together quite closely, Andromeda knows, lobbying the Aurors and the Healers, doing the correspondence to get the meetings set up and cajoling the influential parties into sitting down together. Andromeda would never have guessed Ron for the sort who would be good at this sort of diplomacy, but Lavender has a sure hand at anything that involves social networks. It's easy to underestimate her because she has that infectious laugh and the remnants of great good looks, but she's quite clever and persistent, and she knows all the Healers in Spell Damage and the Dangerous Creatures ward. Harry tells her more about this, because he's seen her and Ron out and about in the Auror Department and the Ministry. He thought she was featherheaded when he was in school, but he's had to revise that opinion.

Anyway, the whole lot went up to Shell Cottage, but she and Ron were _holding hands_… Harry takes off his spectacles and pinches the bridge of his nose; the whole thing is giving him a headache. No, not that kind of headache. Just a garden-variety, ordinary-mortal sort of headache a bloke gets when he sees everything in a mess after the war, and his old friend not speaking to anyone back at the Burrow, and Ginny jealous… of Hermione, of all people, whom he knows for a fact has no romantic interest in him, because as everyone knows, she's having lunch at least every other week with Percy Weasley when she's not at St. Mungo's with Neville Longbottom, and you can't tell with Percy because he's got that officious manner, but Neville is the most candid of mortals and he's been hanging about Hermione and … well, _looking_. Totally ignoring the girls who are dangling about for a fling with the Slayer of Nagini and the Wielder of the Sword, and … this feels like bloody sixth year, nobody can get their story straight about who they fancy and he wishes that Ginny would see things for what they are, that he's never had that kind of interest in Hermione. Well, no, there was that once or twice on the extended camping trip, but that was _thoughts_, all right, a bloke is going to have _thoughts_ if he's spending all that time with a girl, but really, thinking a thought is not the same as doing the deed, as he's sure she'll attest.

_Like chaining up my brother-in-law in the Chamber of Secrets and having a go at him with knives_, she thinks, but doesn't say.

At this point it's plain that Harry had something to drink at the ball, maybe more than one thing to drink, because he isn't normally this talkative and she notices that he's also somewhat feverish looking, a hectic flush on his cheeks that could be fever but is probably firewhiskey. The young folk have been altogether too fond of that stuff since the war.

***

**Author's notes:**

The image of Bellatrix as a weapon in the hands of her Dark Lord comes from the story "The Two Entwined" by tambrathegreat (on fanfiction (dot) net). This dark and disturbing tale proposes a clinically plausible backstory for Bellatrix Black Lestrange; its rating should be taken seriously.

The matrilineal Derwents: Healing, prior to the rise of modern medicine a women's profession, might be one place where descent of property (in this case, craft knowledge) and name might be in the maternal line. The families Rowling shows us by and large belong to the aristocracy, great or small, and follow the usual (Muggle, and specifically English) convention of patrilineal descent and primogeniture.


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

When Andromeda gets up in the morning on the first of November, things seems to have sorted themselves out nicely. Ron has come back from Shell Cottage looking uncommonly pleased with himself; he says only that they'll have an announcement at the next meeting of the Remus Lupin Foundation and he would hate to spoil the surprise. Bill spoils it though, if that's what it can be called; he Floos her late that Sunday afternoon to tell her that the Healers and the Aurors have come to an agreement on the new werewolf protocol, or rather, their superiors have done so, and the next set of negotiations is about how exactly it's going to be put into place. They'll talk about it in more specific detail at the meeting in two weeks, but they're well on their way to the practical side of the program. Of course, on the legislative side, they still have quite a long road ahead of them. And there's another interesting piece of news, although that's still being confirmed… suffice it to say, it will be an interesting meeting.

Then there's another letter from Cissy with the usual notes, which is to say that she's dissatisfied with the state of things in the newly Decommissioned Manor; there was some sort of rabble at the gates the other day, which fortunately the Muggle-repelling charms dealt with, but still—the Ministry shouldn't have done that if they weren't prepared to deal with the consequences. She's been feeling off-color in the mornings, but she supposes that's to be expected given her _interesting condition_. Healer Derwent has paid a return visit with a mediwitch to check on her progress, and she does have to grant that Derwent is conscientious at least. And she's grateful for the information that Draco is in good health, well, except for the matter she discussed with the Headmistress. And speaking of that, has she received the bread and butter note he should have written?

No, Andromeda has to write back, she has had no communications from Draco, and as far as she's able to tell, there are no restrictions on whom he may write, and she's on file with the Headmistress as a family member, so far as she knows; would Cissy like her to confim that? (She reminds herself that it's only an owl, after all, and she's only doing her duty.) Speaking of which, she understands that Draco owes a life debt to Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, but has not acknowledged it; Cissy might like to know that, because Andromeda is quite sure that she wouldn't like to know that a child of hers had been remiss in a matter of that gravity.

That done, she turns to the task of reviewing the notes that Bill, Fleur, Lavender and Ron have prepared for the meeting. There's an outline of the current Auror and St. Mungo's werewolf protocol, the revised protocol proposed by Derwent, Smethwyck and the Foundation, Slughorn's report on the improvements to the Wolfsbane production process. He and the Potions group at St. Mungo's have been verifying some refinements in Snape's notes, as well as some verbal testimony from one of the late Potions Master's pupils at Hogwarts. The latter are small but crucial improvements that oddly enough came up in discussion in the NEWTs study group now working in Slughorn's classroom.

At the back, scribbled in Lavender's fluent curly handwriting, is a summary of the steps in the revised Wolfsbane production process, from her notes in the Potions study group.

One of Snape's pupils… well, this could be interesting. Andromeda knows how blatantly Snape favored members of his own House. Wolfsbane Potion is far from a NEWTs-level assignment; if someone got extra tutorial to the extent of knowing refinements to the brewing of that Potion, it wasn't a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.

Ron's annotation: "The ferret is sharing his toys… about time."

Lavender's note: "Oh let it go, as long as it's good Potions practice."

The next in Bill's handwriting: "29 October: received results from Slughorn's testing, confirmation from St. Mungo's Potions group. Snape's process modifications reduce production time by 20% and remove some of the uncertainties."

Fleur has added in her dense, spiky French hand: "Magical Law Enforcement and St. Mungo's have requested ministerial approval for revised werewolf protocol. Agenda item: role of the Foundation in the protocol."

With all these memos flying back and forth, they were starting to look official.

***

The owl that comes winging in that cold November afternoon is unfamiliar. It's not the one that Justin uses, nor is it the altogether too familiar eagle owl that bears Cissy's messages. Nonetheless she feeds it a treat and unties the message, which is sealed, she notices, with her sister's family seal and colors.

She stands in Molly's kitchen frowning, until she manages to get it unsealed and the mystery is resolved.

It is a very stiff, formal bread-and-butter note, bearing thanks for her visit, and signed "Your respectful nephew, Draco Abraxas Malfoy." It's six weeks late.

She's still staring at it when Ron saunters into the kitchen, and she doesn't have the wit to roll up the message and put it in her pocket. He is on his way to the Potions stores, and he stops halfway, arrested by the glimpse of the letter.

He recognizes the hand, because he says, "So that's him. I can't believe you're related to him."

"Not hard," she says dryly. "My sister married someone I didn't like and had a child by him. Quite easy to get cousins you don't like – or nephews, for that matter." The rest of it is no affair of Ron's. How to say, _move along, nothing interesting here_?

Ron seems to get the message anyway, and moves on to get his Potion—Pepper-up, as it happens. He's feeling under the weather lately, he says, with the Auror duties and the rest… and there's only one draft left in the flask.

Andromeda reminds him that he might make some more, since Molly has quite enough on her hands without constantly having to restore the inventory. (And there's an expectation that they'll be doing that, as she has a neat Potion Master's ledger standing on the shelf next to the row of flasks.)

It's Percy running it down, Ron says, and adds that his brother is pouring himself off a glass of the stuff nearly every evening by way of nightcap. Ron knows this because he's crossed paths with Percy coming home more than once. He's working later and later at his little cubby of an office at the Ministry.

Ron adds that he's actually had lunch with Percy a couple of times at the Leaky or the Ministry canteen. Lavender told him to do it, because Percy's name still comes up more than you'd think, even though by all accounts he's in disgrace with the Ministry. Ron is realizing by slow degrees that this disgrace has nothing to do with being the aide to Minister Thicknesse for a year, but more to do with his appearance at the Battle of Hogwarts. There are people in the Ministry who don't forgive, Lavender said. Well, her mother is Ministry, just like his father, so she'd know.

Percy knows quite a staggering amount about the Muggle-born refugee problem. Even though that's technically not part of what they're about with the Foundation, it's still a potential problem. Umbridge is on house arrest, but there are rumors brewing of a document—a sort of political manifesto—that she is preparing or has prepared, on the Muggle-born menace. And Rita Skeeter is in on it, too, the … _louse_, Ron adds after a lengthy pause that probably corresponds to a search of the invective in his head for an epithet that could be uttered in front of a Pureblood witch a generation his senior without giving undue offense.

"The least political animal in the wizarding world," that's what Hermione had called him. Things change, it seems.

And "Lavender says" seems to be a catchword with him lately. Harry has filled her in on Ron's previous relationship with Lavender, which was a sort of fling, the typical thing that sixth-year Hogwarts students did with their raging hormones.

She'd already been with Ted by that point in her sixth year… no, she has to be honest, it was off-again on-again with Ted through her sixth year, because there was … oh what was his name, the Ravenclaw who played reserve Chaser on his House team. Terrible, she can't remember his name but she does definitely remember his style of kissing…

On the other hand, Ron's arrangement with Lavender is something quite different this time. He seems to be the sort of man who needs a strong-minded woman not too obviously smarter than he… well, she corrects herself, not quite as plainly a daughter of the book as was Hermione. Ron is quite intelligent, though not in the same style as his ex-girlfriend.

There had been sparks between Ron and Hermione, no question; but then she remembers the welding torch that Ted borrowed from a Muggle friend. Yes, the lovely sparks that flew off the tip were star-bright metal… which was the quality of the heat between Ron and Hermione, too hot to touch, hazardous all round. Lavender is a different proposition. She laughs a lot, a very musical sound with an infectious little hiccup in it that convinces all listeners that something really must be irretrievably hilarious. And she's heard Ron laughing along with her, more than once, and he seems to relax visibly when he does so.

Ron drinks off his draft of Pepper-up, then sits down as his face turns the familiar shade of red and his head is wreathed in steam. Really appalling stuff, that, but it does give you at least that temporary sense of restoration.

And anyway, he says, Percy's the one with the 'O' in Potions, so it would be better all around if he were the one to be making more of the stuff. Then he turns and spreads out his papers at the table.

She moves to the kitchen window to peruse the note from Draco once more. It's no less opaque on the second reading; the language is copybook polite and completely impersonal. She remembers the expression on his face when he read her address and thinks there's probably good reason for that. He doesn't want to give anything of himself away, not if she's staying in the house of the enemy.

Headmistress McGonagall had emphasized the importance of keeping silent about his disability. The only ones in on the secret are the Headmistress, Hermione, Neville, Madam Pomfrey and the supervising Healer of the War Crimes Commission, Boudicca Derwent. No one else is to know, because the potential for retaliation is too great, and it's crucial from a political point of view that he come to no harm from anyone on either side, but in the wake of the reprisals against Slytherin House and the adult auxiliaries of the Death Eaters, it's particularly important that no harm come to him from the winning side.

The fire in the hearth flares green, and the face of Lavender Brown appears in the flames. "Hello, Madam Tonks," she says. "Is Ron there?" Ron stands up and moves into the line of sight to the fireplace. "Oh Ron, good to see you. Did you have some time this afternoon? I've just finished over at St. Mungo's…"

"No, I'm free just now. We don't have to travel, do we?" Andromeda guesses that Ron is not overfond of the Floo.

"I can come there, if that's not a problem."

"No problem at all," Ron says. His tone is quite businesslike, but Andromeda notices that his color is rather pinker than it was, and his manner has enlivened in a way that's only partially attributable to the Pepper-up Potion he just imbibed.

The Floo flares brilliant green, and Lavender Brown emerges, stooping a little as she emerges, planting her lapis and silver cane to steady herself as she steps over the hearth into the kitchen. Ron steps forward immediately to assist her to the table. Like a good dance partner, he makes it seem that she's moving under her own power as she gracefully descends to seat herself on the bench. Andromeda notices, though, that his right arm is about her waist and she's leaning into his side, to move their centers of mass as close as possible; there's a brief glimpse of his wand in his left hand and a discreet flick of his left wrist.

She says, "I brought the papers—oh, you've got the notes from Bill." She takes out her charmed reticule, a dainty glittering blue-and-silver bauble even tinier than Hermione's, and removes from it a roll of parchments and several file-folders of the Muggle variety. "Justin gave me his notes, too." She looks at the papers. "I still can't get used to this Muggle writing; it looks like a printed book…"

Ron says, "You haven't seen Justin's handwriting. All the professors at Hogwarts gave him trouble about it. And he says this way is faster."

Lavender shakes her head. Ron sits down next to her and they commence working through the notes and collating them, presumably for their part of the agenda on the upcoming meeting. Andromeda is amused to see how close they're sitting, the light-brown hair and the red catching the dull November light; from time to time, Ron's big, graceful hand brushes her small one, with its silvery network of scars wrapping from the forearm down to the wrist.

And if her housewifely (or motherly) eye does not mistake, there are light-brown hairs already caught on the nap of his hand-knitted jumper. This isn't the first time they've sat together this close… or closer.

She leaves them to their work and goes upstairs to compose a reply to Draco's note. Six weeks late, she thinks. Cissy won't care for that at all; she has another moment of fellow-feeling with her sister as she writes the lines of her reply, cordial but not exceedingly warm, that signal to her correspondent that his lapse in politeness is being overlooked _this once_ but he oughtn't to tempt fate. Shoulder to shoulder with her sister in the effort to reinforce the rudiments of polite behavior in their otherwise farouche offspring. At least it's only a matter of indicating the correct timeliness for social correspondence; she assumes that his table manners are already firmly in place. Certainly, she wouldn't like to repeat the struggle she had with Nymphadora, who had an unseemly habit at age four of levitating quivering spheres of gravy and slurping them as they hung in mid-air.

***

Two hours before the mid-November meeting at Shell Cottage, she receives two Owls. One is from her nephew, with a return note—_aha!_ she thinks, _he's got the message_—and the other, to her surprise, from Kingsley Shacklebolt. She frowns at the latter; the note is a polite, nearly opaque request for a luncheon date at her convenience. There is no Ministerial crest on the parchment, and the seal on the letter is not that of the Ministry but his family emblem, in blue and gold (a reference to the long association of the Shacklebolt family with Ravenclaw House). Quite interesting… well, and it's not clear from the wording of his note—not _immediately_ clear, anyway, what venue he would like. If this is in a personal capacity, perhaps it isn't the Leaky or the Three Broomsticks he means… well, that may be true as well if the matter is political but confidential. Very well, then. She'll accept, leaving the place up to him. It reminds her of the old days, rather, all of this indirection; her instincts tell her it's far more than a lunch date.

She rolls both letters and puts them into the purse at her belt, as she gathers her cloak and portfolio for the meeting. The November wind will be lashing the sea into frenzy, but Mrs. Finch-Fletchley has a taste for the gloomy and picturesque, so they may well be taking another outdoor promenade before the meeting. She has to say, she rather likes Justin's mother; except that she is rather heartily sane (and a Muggle), her elegance and tensile strength are quite _comme il faut_ in a traditional Pureblood way. Her brother-in-law Lucius and his Dark Lord really did rank amongst nature's fools; no one in their right mind could object to their child marrying into a family like the Finch-Fletchleys.

Not to mention that their wealth places them in the first rank of the magnates of wizarding Britain—and that's just the part that they've assigned to a Gringotts vault. (And no doubt that would give Lucius a litter of kittens just to contemplate—that he's been displaced as the first philanthropist of wizarding Britain by a Muggle-born upstart not yet in his twenties.)

***

As expected, there is an outing along the cliffs in advance of the meeting. Lavender and Ron stay inside, of course, because her condition doesn't permit her to hike along the cliffs, but the rest of the inner circle—Bill, Fleur, Justin, herself, and Padma—cast warming charms on themselves and gamely take to the winding road along the cliffs as Mrs. Finch-Fletchley admires the view. She refuses the warming charm, as she is wearing clothes appropriate to the weather, and claims to prefer the chill on her face. Andromeda thinks she rather suspects the rest of them of decadence, but is too polite to say. For her own part, she thanks Merlin for warming charms—which, if she remembers aright from History of Magic, were in fact one of that famous wizard's most truly notable contributions to the cozy culture that is wizarding Britain. Otherwise, the whole lot of them might have long since Apparated to the South of France.

As they're returning to Shell Cottage, Seamus and Parvati appear at the door; apparently they and Ron and Lavender have put the room in order for the meeting, which is to say transfigured the tea table into something large enough to accommodate the extra food that has been brought in anticipation of the additional attendee—Hermione Granger—and the expected length of the meeting, given the discussion expected to follow once Hermione has told them about the Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Creatures.

***

When they come inside, Ron and Lavender look up from the beautifully laid-out food. Andromeda rather suspects that's mostly Lavender's doing, as the Weasley boys are notorious for their disinclination for domestic tasks of any kind (another point of friction between Ron and his late intended, it would appear from Molly's remarks). They appear to have been interrupted in another tete-a-tete, if their pink faces and tousled looks are any indication.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is arranging her napkin on her lap and saying sotto voce to her son that this Miss Granger sounds _most_ impressive, and … Andromeda sees a flicker of relief on his face when his mother's monologue is interrupted; Fleur gets up to meet an arrival at the barrier, who can be none other than Hermione, as is confirmed a minute or so later when door swings to and the two women enter. Hermione's hair has been blown into a truly wild mane, and her cloak is in disarray; the wind must have risen considerably. It is, after all, November. When she takes off the cloak, she's wearing an elegant dark tunic and black jeans, which emphasize her paleness and the thinness of her hands.

It takes Andromeda a few minutes to recognize the black tunic: it's the very one she gave Nymphadora for her Auror graduation; it must have been in the stack of clothes that she handed off to Hermione at Grimmauld Place. It doesn't in the least remind her of her daughter, surprisingly enough; she supposes that's because Nymphadora never wore it but once or twice, and it hangs rather differently on Hermione's body.

After the introductions, Bill presents the latest report on the reprisals against the werewolves. Arthur Weasley has recruited more like-minded witches and wizards in other parts of wizarding Britain, some of them ex-Order members. This revised report is far more complete in its geographic coverage; the pattern of reprisals is taking shape, and it's disturbingly uniform, though the reporters have been helpless to intervene against the weight of community opinion. Neither the Aurors stationed locally nor the pairs sent out from London have been of much help. A revised protocol would come none too soon…

Which sets the stage for the joint announcement of the success of the last round of negotiations, and the pending Ministerial approval of the new St. Mungo's and Auror protocols, which involve capturing the werewolves, registering them, and setting them up on a regime of Wolfsbane Potion, with secure observation at St. Mungo's during the danger period. The Finch-Fletchley donations have made possible the construction of a new ward exclusively devoted to this purpose, and for various rehabilitation programs and Potions brewing in the period between the full moons. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley has indicated that the ward should bear not only her family name but that of the Foundation's namesake and of the improver of the Wolfsbane Potion.

Andromeda remembers the animosity between Severus Snape and Remus Lupin, and smiles a little at the idea that they're now to be united in death… though 'Lupin-Snape-Finch-Fletchley Center for Clinical Management of Lycanthropy and Lycanthropoid Disorders' doesn't precisely roll off the tongue.

Then there's the report on the improvements to the Wolfsbane Potion, and she notices Hermione's lips quirk a bit at the mention of Snape's former student, the one who had taught them the last, unrecorded set of improvements. Oh, yes, she must know exactly who that is. No doubt the thought is something to the effect: "Here's the first worthwhile thing Draco Malfoy has done in his entire life."

Finally Hermione is asked for the report on the Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Creatures. She talks a bit about the research she's been sent on: she says she is now reasonably well-read on house-elf legislation—going back to Roman times, in fact—as well as the reservation policies governing centaurs and merpeople, and the treaties with the Goblins, which bid fair to play a role in the upcoming war crimes trials. They're playing a role even now, she says, which she should outline for them before the Commission puts her under Fidelius. There are war damages for Gringotts, incurred in the search for the late Dark Lord's seven Horcruxes… (She's not sure, by the way, of the plural for Horcrux, since the various texts disagree. _Secrets of the Darkest Art_ has 'Horcruxes' whereas the _Codex Maleficarum_ in the 1763 Rosier-Malfoy translation has 'Horcruces,' though that translation is controversial on a number of points, and has been superseded in general use by the somewhat bowdlerized 1910 Hopkirk-Fudge edition, which elides entirely the whole issue of the Horcrux, singular or plural.) In any case, the Ministry is paying her salary to Gringotts by way of compensation, which technically makes her a bond-slave of the Goblins until the debt is paid. This should be borne in mind should any question arise of conflicts of interests, although she has tried to make a fair-minded survey of the literature.

From the outset, the Committee shut off any discussion of two issues key to the post-war situation: the legal status of werewolves and the terms of the Ministry's binding contract with the Dementors and the status under that contract of their additional issue since the war—which is to say, the rogue Dementors. "'We're not here to discuss Dark Creatures,'" she quotes the chair-witch of the committee.

When Hermione recites the full membership of the Committee, Bill Weasley groans aloud. Three of them are known Umbridge protégés in the formal line—two witches and a wizard who began at the Ministry as her scrivener-apprentices—and the rest are far from progressive on any of the questions under consideration.

Oh yes, Hermione adds, most of the meetings conflict with the War Crimes Commission. She has a sharp shrewd look as she says, "But there are ways around _that._" There's the look of the lioness about her, Andromeda thinks, and then it's superseded by weariness. "They're sending me off to do research to keep me occupied," she says. "I think they're hoping to run me into the ground." She lifts her chin, and adds, "But no research is ever wasted. There will be a report—and then there will be the unofficial first draft, with chapters on the things you _do_ want to know about. No research is wasted, and I always cast my nets wide." She says that the first draft in question is nearly ready, and as it is _not_ the report that the Committee are asking her to produce, and the source materials are nearly all items that anyone could obtain given enough time, there's no question of official secrets; a copy will be finding its way to the appropriate hands.

Bill says that he would be interested in a copy of the official report as well—both on his behalf and on that of his employers at Gringotts.

"Well, that might be a bit more difficult," Hermione says, "if they decide to classify it as secret… though I doubt they'll do that, because frankly I don't think they believe anyone cares but me and a handful of other eccentrics. Arthur Weasley is already on the distribution list." She smiles a sharp-edged predatory smile that fleetingly reminds Andromeda of Augusta Longbottom on the warpath. "Let's fly under their radar while we can. A copy will find its way to you."

Bill asks what additional sources she consulted.

"Oh, on the werewolf and Dementor questions, I have some… erm, inter-library loans, from Durmstrang. Friends of friends, you know."

Fleur smiles, and says, "Viktor Krum's cousin is the librarian at Durmstrang."

"Including some oral histories of the Grindelwald War, and what they've been doing on the Continent in the way of werewolf rehabilitation. Voldemort really wasn't very original, it turns out; he and Greyback pretty much copied Grindelwald's campaign. So the Europeans are experts on rehabilitation. Scandinavia has really taken the lead, particularly in the regions that Grindelwald targeted for the werewolf terror. I think that once the embargo is lifted, we could have quite a nice exchange program with them, because I'd wager they'd be interested in Snape's improvements to the Wolfsbane Potion. They were pretty hard hit in the last war, you know."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is now looking at Hermione with an interest that is most _decided,_ and _intent,_ and if she were not a Muggle, Andromeda would think of a Pureblood matron contemplating a particularly enticing prospect for a marriage alliance.

Lavender says that the Foundation is to have a role in the new protocol, with representatives on call—in pairs—starting with New Year's Eve, which is a full moon night. They will make sure that the protocol is fulfilled, and if anyone has been brought in with a werewolf bite, they'll stay with them and make sure that they know about the support services available through the Foundation. Thus far, that particular point has been moot, of course, as the pack attacks have resulted in fatalities. Greyback's persistent interest in attacking children has resulted in packs of adolescents, and as yet, no strategic mind has come to the fore.

Bill reads out the rotation for the next two cycles: for New Year's Eve, Ron and Lavender; on the last night of January, himself and Justin (Fleur being excused due to her pregnancy).

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley looks thoughtful, and then she raises the question no one has considered: the victims thus far have belonged to both sides of the border, yes? And they've all been fatalities, so in a way things have been simple. What are they to do if there's a non-fatal attack on _our_ side of the border? By _our_ side, of course, she means the Muggle world.

There's utter silence in the room.

Hermione is actually the first to speak. "I understand that St. Mungo's policy with Muggle casualties is to Obliviate them." She pauses, with a slight frown, and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley nods. Yes, she knows what _Obliviate_ is, and it doesn't seem a good thing at all. It's hard enough to manage a chronic condition without the patient literally not remembering that they have it, yes? Not to mention the difficulty of keeping them compliant with a medication regime under such circumstances…

Only a Muggle would call lycanthropy a _chronic condition, _though Andromeda has to grant that technically she's right. Hermione seems to think so, too, because she's nodding, as if the sun has come up on a hitherto obscure piece of the landscape.

"Well, I suppose Obliviation would be out of the question," Hermione says. "Though you'll have a hard time convincing the Aurors, because they're unduly fond of that one."

Ron actually nods, much to Andromeda's surprise. "The old hands say that what the Muggles don't remember won't hurt them—or us."

Hermione is looking at him. "So I don't know the Aurors' policy on Muggle werewolves," she says. "I don't suppose you looked that up…"

Ron shakes his head. "There isn't such a thing." When Hermione frowns again, he hastens to clarify. "No such thing as a policy and no such thing as a Muggle werewolf—not in Britain, anyway. Not in living memory."

She frowns. Andromeda is intrigued, watching this, because they both seem to have one foot in their old relation and one in the new one.

"I don't think we can assume that state of affairs will last forever."

Bill is scribbling something in the notebook in his lap, and then he looks up to say, "Point well taken. Except that's the case nobody wants."

Hermione says, "Best to be prepared for it, then, or the fools will steal a march on us." Mrs. Finch-Fletchley nods, with the slightest of grim little smiles curving her lips. Hermione has plainly gained another hundred points in her estimation. Andromeda has to say that she shares her opinion, because the girl has walked right in and said aloud what they've all been dreading: best to be prepared for a situation where the clinically and ethically correct solution involves a violation of the hitherto sacrosanct Statute of Secrecy.

She won't be the only one having trouble sleeping tonight, she thinks, looking around at the circle of faces. Fleur looks back at her, dead white under her Veela glow—_momento mori_ showing through the mask of beauty; Ron's hand closes convulsively on Lavender's, in plain sight of everyone.

Hermione nods. "Owl me. Surely between all of us we'll be able to come up with something."

***


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

In the first week of December, Andromeda is peering critically in the mirror in Molly's room, since that's the only room with a full length mirror. She's put on robes over jeans and Ted's old chamois shirt… rather the mixed wizard-and-Muggle look. She's been tweaking and transfiguring to get it to look acceptable for a jaunt over the border.

She's ignoring the commentary from the mirror, which is irrelevant since it has no idea what will pass in Muggle London. It is telling her that she looks pale and interesting… which is just so nineteenth-century. On the other hand, this could be interpreted as modishness on the part of the mirror, which is actually an eighteenth-century Prewett family heirloom.

Finally, she shrugs and realizes that there is someone she can ask: Harry. She keeps forgetting, in the cloud of mystification about the Boy Who Lived and the Savior of the Wizarding World, that Harry is also an eighteen-year-old boy who was reared in the Muggle world. She regrets the departure of Hermione at these times, because while not the most fashion-conscious of individuals in either world, Hermione at least knew when things looked _wrong,_ and occasionally she knew what to do to make them look right_._ Harry will be able to tell her if she looks outlandish, and she supposes this is good enough. After all, Kingsley's note made it clear that this wasn't official business, so at least she won't have to contend with Muggle dignitaries.

She goes downstairs to find Harry, who is sitting with Ron in the kitchen. Molly is in Diagon Alley buying Potions ingredients at the apothecary, which she supposes shouldn't surprise her, between Ginny's calming draughts and Percy's Pepper-up and the rather surprising inroads that have been made into the Sobriety Potion.

Ron is saying, "I can't believe that the Ferret actually _winked_ at Hermione. I mean, you saw that too, didn't you? Tell me I'm not crazy."

Harry says, "You're not crazy, but I don't know what it means."

"I can't believe that little prat. You'd think nothing even happened, not the last seven years or any of the shitty things he's said. Not to mention him trying to bloody _kill _us. All of a sudden we're all supposed to be happy families with him, like he's our long lost cousin."

Harry stares at the table. "I hate to tell you this, Ron, but he _is_ our cousin. The Black Family Tapestry says so."

"He could at least apologize. He owes us. He owes us his stinking life and do we hear a _word_ about it? And then he's winking at Hermione. Little Death Eater bastard, I'd like to twist his head off."

"Hermione wouldn't like that."

"Oh, sod that for a game of toy soldiers. She's out of her mind with sleep deprivation. McGonagall told her to be _humane_ to the bloody hostage, and she goes overboard."

Harry heaves a deep sigh. This is plainly a conversation that's been going, and going in circles, for some time. "Call him out yourself then, if you're so fussed about it. Wizard's duel, just like first year. Right in the middle of Potions revisions. Slughorn will love you for that."

Ron stares at his hands. "Ministry would have my arse for it. I perfectly well know why he's there. Checkmate to Lucius and Narcissa, because they won't try to leave the country without him. I just thought it would make a difference, that they lost big and he's had the stuffing kicked out of him… and he _still_ gets under my skin." He says with a wrathful expression, "He never _winked_ at Hermione before, like they're in on some big joke together." He actually bares his teeth and adds, "or as if he bloody _fancied _her."

Harry looks thoughtful. "He hasn't used the M-word in a long time. Not since the war."

Ron rolls his eyes. "No, because it would be his pitiful hide if he did. McConnell told me that she's going to hex him but good if she ever hears him even mutter it."

"You're listening to McConnell and her rubbish?"

"Yeah, well, hexing Malfoy used to be good clean fun, didn't it? McConnell told me the little bastard knocked Hermione out of the sky in flying practice back in October and she would have gotten him then, except that Hermione got in the way." Ron smirks momentarily. "That's our Hermione, isn't it? Defender of the underdog. First house elves and now Draco bloody Malfoy." He laughs. "A step down in the world, if you ask me."

Harry's frowning. "McConnell is out for blood. I told Ginny to stop hanging around her in the Auror tea room. She just encourages that revenge talk about the Malfoys …" he pauses, "and that's really doing Ginny no good." He takes off his spectacles and runs one hand through his already disheveled hair. There's a very long silence, because nearly everyone in this house knows what is happening with Ginny; if nothing else, the fact that the Healers will no longer prescribe Dreamless Sleep and they're trying to wean her off the calming draughts, which she is supplementing with firewhiskey.

They both look up as Andromeda approaches.

"Harry, I had a question for you about Muggle clothes," she says. "I have a lunch date… in Muggle London. How do I look?"

Harry frowns. "Transfigure the robes some more," he says. "Is this someplace casual you're going?"

"I don't know. It's just… a lunch date."

Harry takes out his wand and gives it a swish and flick. The robes are now a long woolen tunic in deep plum with slashed sleeves and an open collar, the jeans are solid black, and the chamois shirt is a high-necked black tunic like the one she gave Nymphadora. He does another pass on the cloak she's carrying, and now it's a black overcoat with lots of pockets. "There," he says, "I don't know if it's what everybody is wearing, but it will pass."

She says, "So before I leave, I understand my nephew hasn't written to you about the life debt?" Ron shakes his head, looking disgruntled.

She puts on her best Wrath-of-the-Pureblood-Matron look and says, "That will be dealt with." Ron looks startled; that must be the resemblance to Bella showing again. If only she had some assurance that she were fearsome in her own right. On the other hand, the resemblance to Bella will probably carry some weight with the child she's renamed from The Clone to Prince Draco the Sulky.

***

The restaurant in which she dines with Kingsley Shacklebolt lies deep in Muggle London. He meets her at Kings Cross. At half-past noon, the Hogwarts Express has departed and the station is given over to the all-too-numerous Muggles. From all that she can tell, they are the only two denizens of wizarding Britain in the vast space.

They travel to the restaurant by Muggle taxicab. Kingsley is wearing an elegant overcoat not too different from her own, with a woolen scarf wrapped about his neck and tucked in the collar after the fashion of a cravat; he's carrying a briefcase and looks the very soul of Muggledom, just as he had in the days of the Fudge and Scrimgeour Ministries, when he was shadowing the Muggle Prime Minister.

She catches a glimpse in the rear-view mirror of the taxicab: a pale woman with a corona of shoulder-length brown hair, a dark man with a dashing air (the gold earring helps), both wearing dark winter coats. The driver doesn't give them a second glance. They pass for Muggles. What an odd thought, that. What's normal on this side of the border…

The restaurant is elegantly hushed; they are guided to a private enclosure and handed menus. Hers has no prices marked. "Official business, Kingsley?" she asks. "Does the Ministry know you're lavishing the public funds on your old friends from the war?"

"Yes and no to the first question," he replies, "no and no to the second. Official business, unofficial conversation, not on the Ministry tab. Even if I were inclined to play favorites, no. Too many are watching, and I'm not Cornelius Fudge."

He recommends dishes, and she accedes as he orders wine as well. Then, as the waiter leaves with the order, he takes out his wand, just below the level of the table, and casts an elaborate charm… not a classic notice-me-not, but one of the selectively permeable cloaking charms in favor with the Aurors. Best not to be completely inconspicuous if you want your lunch to reach you; but nothing that anyone overhears by chance will be remembered—and that goes for wizarding as well as Muggle eavesdroppers.

It's with the wine that he gets down to business. "So I understand you are writing to your sister." She's unsurprised; of course the Auror office is reading both sides of that correspondence. "And you've been to Hogwarts to see your nephew." She nods. "And your sister asked you to stand godmother, and you said yes."

She replies, "Well, I suppose there isn't anyone else in the picture."

"No, there isn't," Kingsley says. "And that's what we're to discuss. You're the defendant's one politically reliable relative."

She frowns. "Which defendant? There isn't a list."

Kingsley says, "We're among ourselves here, Andromeda. You and I both know who's on that list." He says, "The defendant I had in mind was your nephew." He says, "Do you want to have this conversation?"

She frowns. "It's about my sister, and her son. So yes, I suppose I do. But I'm not quite sure what is going on."

"I'm going to have to put you under Fidelius to explain." He looks at her intently. "No one can know any of this, not before the trial, and maybe not after, either."

Which means, of course, that whatever he's about to tell her she will not be able to repeat to any living soul. She sighs and it comes out as a shudder. "All right, then." He hesitates. "All right, Kingsley, you have my consent. Cast it."

He doesn't cast it then, because the waiter arrives with the first of the food. Once the man's back is turned, there's another discreet swish and flick below table level. She doesn't feel any different, of course; it will only stop her voice if she tries to have this conversation with anyone other than Kingsley… whatever conversation they're about to have.

The matter of it is simple, it turns out. The Wizengamot is split down the middle between Order members or sympathizers and old-school Purebloods. The Pureblood faction isn't monolithic, of course, but there's already fairly solid consensus, particularly in the quarters that might have tainted themselves in the late unpleasantness, that the answer to everyone's problems is to expropriate the Malfoy assets. All of them, Manor and Gringotts vault and overseas holdings, if they can get the appropriate instruments signed with the foreign Ministries. A war crimes conviction will help greatly in that regard, leaving aside the fact, naked to even the most cursory glance at the evidence, that Lucius Malfoy is guilty as sin. They're wanting to re-try him on the charges from the first war, too, in spite of push-back from certain segments of the War Crimes Commission about double jeopardy.

"And my sister?"

"She'll be charged as an accessory. The draft indictment has her son down as the assistant to Bellatrix Lestrange and Dolores Umbridge, and there are Pensieve depositions indicating that he cast Unforgivables."

She gulps, thinking about that sulky little boy she met being confined in the dread tower in the North Sea, at the mercy of the Dementors. "Open and shut, then. Life in Azkaban."

"Not necessarily so. There are complications. He isn't the only one, and that means people on our side as well. If we take the bait and send him up for the usual penalty, our people will be in the dock in a year or two."

"Which of our people?"

"A good piece of the Hogwarts student body, for one. You know that the Carrows were teaching the Unforgivables in their Dark Arts class." She opens her mouth in horror. "Multiple depositions, and the Heads of House made a special representation about the situation, asking that we exempt them, at least those who were underage. And Neville Longbottom said he'd stand out in the front of the Wizengamot with a protest placard if they charged any of those students. They were under duress."

"Neville Longbottom…"

"…said he'd go on a hunger strike, personally, in front of the Wizengamot, if any of _his kids_ were charged with war crimes. And yes, he was the first one to say no, and he was tortured for it." Kingsley pauses, putting his fingertips together and leaning over them as if in prayer. "And my sources tell me that he'd have no trouble convincing Hermione Granger to join him there."

She considers that for a long moment.

"And then there's Harry Potter."

"He'll be protesting in front of the Wizengamot too?"

"No, he'll be in the dock. There's Pensieve evidence that Harry cast the Cruciatus and Imperius Curses during the war. As far as the hard-liners are concerned, he's two-for-two with your nephew, and they would love to get their hands on him. All we have to do is set the precedent."

Andromeda frowns. "So this is the reason for the Fidelius…"

"That, and the question I'm about to ask you. You're Draco Malfoy's last living relative… well, his last living relative who's not on a war crimes indictment. We'll need someone politically reliable to release him to, you know."

A weight settles on her chest. "To release him …"

"After the trial. The safe money is that Lucius will get twenty years, minimum, and under current circumstances, that's as good as life." Kingsley looks grim for a moment. "In his state of health, it's a death warrant, actually, without troubling anyone's conscience. Narcissa will get something lighter, I'd say five if we factor in Harry Potter's testimony and we play down the torture angle."

"You know that she's pregnant." Not a question; if nothing else, the report of the Task Force on Decommissioning would have told him that.

"Well, that's a complication. There will be disagreement, of course, but they won't risk the outcry by sending her to Azkaban before she gives birth. But that raises another question…"

"I've been asked to stand godmother," Andromeda says, squaring her shoulders. "I had a good idea of why she was asking me."

A flash of Nymphadora, newly pregnant, in the summer (improbably bright) before the fall of the Ministry: "Well, mum, you don't look like a grandmother, but you're going to be one."

No. She's not a grandmother. She's going to be the mother of two children. Three, if you count the sulky little nephew who's of age, and if rumor is to be trusted, wears the Dark Mark. Forty-five, and the mother of three children. At least until Narcissa gets out of Azkaban… assuming she's sane when she does.

And thanks to Fidelius, she cannot tell a single living soul. The story will play out, and she alone of the spectators will know the outcome: twenty years for her hated brother-in-law, five years for her estranged sister, and some sort of probationary arrangement for her nephew.

That means that her nephew, _Draco bloody Malfoy,_ as Ron invariably calls him, is going to be coming to live at the Burrow. Yes, she's going to have to have that conversation with Draco about the life debt sooner rather than later, because if that's not settled by April or May or whenever they're handing down the verdicts, the battles that have raged at the Burrow are going to look mild indeed by comparison to what is going to ensue. Which is to say, his bad manners might end by costing him his life.

***

Kingsley takes a considered sip of his wine, and she matches him… it's a splendid vintage from 1978, the year that Nymphadora was five, …

Yes, she will look at every date now through 1998 and think: the year that Nymphadora was five, hair floating on the air like a mermaid's locks, blue and green with Lily Evans' charmed fish swimming through it; the year that Nymphadora was ten and swooping over summer fields on her Cleansweep, practicing the Wronski Feint (or one of its predecessors) and scaring her mother; the year that Nymphadora was fifteen and declaring that her name was not Nymphadora but Tonks, and it was only with a teenager's lofty condescension that her father was permitted to call her Dora—but not in front of her friends; the year that Nymphadora was twenty and sweating through Auror training, to the entire satisfaction of Kingsley Shacklebolt and Alastor Moody, both of whom compared her (in her mother's hearing) to Alice Longbottom. Ill-omened, that, for all they meant it as praise; it had put a shiver through her even before the war. _Someone just walked over my grave._

And this year, 1998, the year that Nymphadora was twenty-five, the clock stopped on the second of May, some time before dawn.

All anniversaries thereafter will be in the subjunctive: May of 1999, and Nymphadora would have been twenty-six. A decade hence, and Nymphadora would have been thirty-six… May of 2019, and Nymphadora would have been forty-six, a year older than she is now, and her son will just have passed his twentieth birthday.

It's the subjunctive forty-six-year-old Nymphadora with the twenty-year-old son that brings the tears to her eyes, the Nymphadora, possibly widowed, who's a senior officer in the Aurors and training a critical eye on the youngsters and quoting old Moody about the wand in the back pocket. Nymphadora, a witch of a certain age—approaching mid-century—with a wicked husky laugh, who's the secret crush of some number of the boys and girls she's training.

She doesn't realize that the tears show until Kingsley is handing her his snowy linen handkerchief.

They've known each other so long that she doesn't even need to explain why she's dabbing at her eyes with his handkerchief. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Brings herself back to the present, the world that actually happened, and opens her eyes to see Kingsley looking at her gravely.

"So, since I'm bound to silence anyway," she says, "tell me about the embargo."

He smiles. "You know, I always did find Slytherins rather sexy."

"The witches or the wizards?"

"That would be telling, wouldn't it?" She laughs at their ancient joke, almost before it's out of his mouth. "Snakes travel in a straight line, never mind what they told you in school."

He sets the wine glass aside and puts his fingers together in that steeple gesture that emphasizes both their length and the elegance of their oval nails. "So we come to it: the embargo. Is it North America or Central Europe that hates us more? Hard to tell. North America has Muggle politicians who believe in witches and are rather fond of bombing things. Central Europe had Grindelwald and didn't fancy having Voldemort as the second act. Rumor has it there's a passel of Yank purebloods noising about that Voldemort had the right idea. They haven't drawn a straw yet to see who's to be Dark Lord or Lady this round, but it's only a matter of time." He frowns. "And we're marked out as the source of the contagion, so Sinead Pierce O'Halloran has the brilliant idea that we're to hold war crimes trials, just like the Muggles, to prove to the world that—how did she put it?—we've _put all that behind us._"

The North American Minister for Magic is a notoriously headstrong Boston Irishwoman with a university degree in international law, and what's worse is that she's corralled not only the famously fractious North American wizarding community into it (from the Northwest Territories of Canada down to the old Aztec homelands of Mexico) but a sufficiently large number of other Ministries—those coextensive with the British Commonwealth, for certain, and Central Europe, and quite a bit of Africa and much of the Far East—to effectively isolate wizarding Britain.

"Of course, we should have known we were for it when they banned us from the World Cup," Kingsley says. Andromeda remembers Ginny's dark words about that at Harry's birthday party; she wonders if that first glass of firewhiskey hadn't been by way of drowning her sorrows for a Quidditch career she probably was never going to have. "The hard-line Purebloods won't forgive us, and everyone's unhappy about the travel restrictions. No crossing borders of any kind until it's over."

Andromeda remembers Neville's remark about Hermione's parents. "So… no trips to Australia."

"Ah yes, Miss Granger's parents. Well, that's rather a different case—more complicated than you'd think. But you've the essence of it. And there's a trade embargo as well, and we have Chattox & Device down our throat about that."

"The inimitable Augusta."

"Yes, rather. Makes me wonder some days if we oughtn't to have ignored the prophecy and just nudged her in Tom Riddle's direction. It would have been a much _shorter_ war."

"For Tom, certainly. Except that would have left Augusta in control of the Ministry." They're a bit giddy now, she knows, because sober she wouldn't be able to pronounce the dread name of You-Know-Who, leave alone the homely Muggle moniker it concealed—or to commit the lese-majeste of referring to Madam Longbottom by her given name.

"So we're under embargo from our wizarding confreres, but that's not the worst of it. The real headache is the Muggle Minister. He's taking all of the Muggle-killing rather personally, one might say. 'Terrorist minority,' that's the nicest thing they've found to call us. He doesn't care about Death Eaters or Order of the Phoenix—it's all foreign politics to him, so we're tarred with the same brush. Oh yes, and we probably made a mistake Decommissioning your brother-in-law's Manor, and that's _strictly_ off the record."

"The lovely thing about Fidelius," Andromeda says, "is that _nothing_ is on the record."

"Next best thing to _Obliviate,_" Kingsley says, "though if we're going to be off the record, I'll tell you that approximately half the Auror corps is dead pitiful with it. And in any case, we haven't the staff to Obliviate the number of Muggles involved in this, and that's the next thing."

Andromeda frowns, not following his reasoning.

"The Wiltshire anomaly. You didn't know there was a Wiltshire anomaly, did you? There's a certain patch, you know, that no one's been able to map in the last three hundred years, and do you know why? It's _Unplottable, _because the unforgivable Malfoy of the day would insist on it, and the Ministry couldn't see past the Galleons_._ Which means that for the entire twentieth century, the Muggles' aerial surveillance photos have been turning up with blurry patches, always in the same place. And now, just as mysteriously, they've cleared up, so naturally someone sent in the expectable persons to check it out."

"Cissy said the Muggle-repelling charms were still in place."

"A small mercy, and I'm sure the publican at the Muggle local is quite pleased at the business he's been doing, since that's where they go when they've inexplicably lost interest. It's just that three or four waves of Muggle Aurors, or whatever they call them, just taking it into their heads to jaunt off to the pub for a pint, draws suspicion after a bit… especially when they do it in formation."

Andromeda has to suppress a giggle at the picture.

"Not to mention that they've caught wind somehow of the mass graves … there's a leak in the Auror department, I'd wager, or a disgruntled Muggle-born refugee—as if there were any other kind. And the Muggles have hit a brick wall trying to make inquiries about the proprietor, because there is no such person. Not in their records, anyway. The Muggle Minister has put together two and two to get the expected sum, and we're awaiting the extradition order any day. But that's not the worst of it."

He reaches for the wine glass, appears to consider the sacrilege of self-medicating with a vintage of that rank, and takes a measured though purposeful sip. "The Muggle Minister says he's been under considerable pressure from the Americans to share the top-secret stealth technology. The one, you know, that makes enemy spies simply _lose interest._"

***


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Teddy had been a _good baby_ for so long, a state of affairs that she realizes now was not going to persist forever. He was coming up to eight months and just getting to his feet and finding his way around from one piece of furniture to the next, smiling his gummy toothless smile all the while, which everyone found quite charming. He wasn't ready to let go of the certainty of the chair or the low table to take hold of a proffered hand; Ginny and Harry certainly tried.

The storm broke in the first week of December, just after her luncheon with Kingsley and her resolution to betake herself to Hogwarts at first opportunity and lay down the law to Draco.

It wasn't the daytime that was hard. It was the night.

Teddy had decided that he had a good eight months' worth of nighttime screaming to catch up on, and so he did. After the third night, Andromeda developed the decided conviction that he was doing it on purpose; every time she fell asleep—hovering just at the velvet edge of dreamless black—he woke her up. A professional torturer couldn't have paid more attention to timing.

Of course, that was her paranoid imagination. Of course. And, of course, people did kill their own children. Every day, and she was coming to understand that urge and to find it perfectly and eminently logical. If you killed them, the noise stopped.

She knew that wasn't a good thought to be having, and she confided it to Molly for safe-keeping, Molly who more than understood. "Twins," she said. "You haven't lived until you've had twins. Those two were working in relay before they could walk."

Molly kept an eye on Teddy during the day, while she caught a brief nap. That developed into a habit, and Andromeda ended by taking the night shift. She'd always been the cheerful daylight one of the three Black sisters—no one would ever accuse Bella of anything to do with fresh air and sunlight, and Cissy had her complexion to think about—and now she was skulking about the Burrow in the dark hours.

No, Gryffindors skulk. Slytherins _glide._

Yes, and she and Molly were nowhere near exhausting their stores of Gryffindor vs. Slytherin jokes. Funny, in the twilight of sleep deprivation, even that deadly school rivalry lost its edge and became absurd. Lions lie around all day sleeping, and snakes… well, with snakes it depends. She couldn't remember offhand if snakes actually slept. In any case, the stereotypes were wrong. "Snakes travel in a straight line, never mind what they told you in school." Kingsley's quip, endlessly renewed from the days of their first acquaintance. Yes, if you wanted the straight line drawn for you, ask a son or daughter of the House of Ambition, especially if the matter on the table were money or power. And the Snakes had their own sort of naivete; consider her gauche little nephew…

…which she fully intended to do, once she could manage to be awake in the light of day.

And as for the House of Courage (or the House of Dunderhead Foolhardiness), lions are cats, after all, and like to play about with their prey, _quite _a lot. In her experience, the classic Gryffindor will dance about a question quite a bit before coming to the point.

Consider, for example, Ron Weasley. Which she is doing, just now, on toward evening as she is helping out with prep for the meal that was to be her breakfast, and which the rest of the Burrow will be calling dinner. The knives are chopping in staccato backbeat to the stirring of the pot on the stove, when the Floo flares and Ron steps through. He is home early, because he needs to have a _word_ with his mum.

Andromeda makes to bow out, but Ron shakes his head. She's been the confidante of too many of his sidelong confessions to miss that. There's something he has to tell, and he wants reinforcements. She's wondering what it is, if he didn't come to talk to her first—for that's not unusual, asking for advice on how to prepare his mum for something she isn't inclined to hear—and hangs back, keeping eye contact as he fields Molly's initial fluster.

Work is fine, and no, he's feeling quite well. No, he got permission to come home early. Well, because there are _things_, and it's hard to get a bit of privacy otherwise. And it's complicated. The preliminary, of course, is that he's grown up. Of age, and he wants to underline that before they talk any further. That's a tactical mistake, of course; anything you want your parent to take seriously, you don't carve on the wall in seven-foot-high Roman capitals. On the other hand, she can't say she has much in the way of experience with proper family rows; her own mother, Druella Rosier Black, was more in the way of a Byzantine empress. You didn't defy her to her face but found a way around, and lied through your teeth if caught, and hoped that the stylishness of the lie would take some of the edge off the resulting punishment—which you took like a daughter of the House of Black. It was a dance as formal as a duel or a Greek tragedy, the last act of which occurred off stage.

Molly is frowning, because of course she's the Gryffindor mother of seven Gryffindor children, and she recognizes the preliminary to something she isn't going to like.

He's listing all of the precedents, Fred and George leaving school and setting up shop, Bill and Charlie taking off for Egypt and Romania, respectively, right out of Hogwarts, lighting out for the territories under the aegis of Gringotts and the Dragon Conservancy. He could mention Percy, too, Andromeda thinks, but self-preservation overrides logic there, because Percy's departure from the parental home was under a cloud, and that's where Ron definitely doesn't want to be.

And there's the war, and the Order of Merlin, … well, this is bad, whatever it is, because Ron absolutely _never_ recites his curriculum vitae as a Hero of the Battle of Hogwarts. Everyone else treats him like a grownup, he goes on, even _Hermione_ had, at the Remus Lupin Foundation meeting. She'd been pleasantly surprised to hear about his unofficial liaison work with the Auror Department, and had said so.

"Hermione says…" well, Andromeda never thought that she'd hear Ron quoting her as an authority.

She must have nodded out and missed the thread a bit, because the next thing she hears is, "So Lavender and I decided that the best thing is to get married. She already told her parents, and they're not too unhappy about it."

Molly is listening, white with shock; hers is the silence of a woman waiting for the next blow.

"We'll be respectable before the baby comes," he's saying, "and anyway you and dad eloped, so it's not as if we need to do the full Pureblood thing with all the trimmings."

Molly opens her mouth, and nothing comes out.

"Anyway, we have to do it soon, under the circumstances," he goes on, reassured (in error, Andromeda thinks) by his mother's silence. His tone is picking up assurance as he continues, "if it's a matter of reputation, because the cat will be out of the bag at the third month. Anyway, that's what the Healers said."

Molly says, "So you and Lavender are… you've been… and she's _pregnant._" Andromeda knows to fear, because Molly is _quiet._

Ron nods. "It's a high risk pregnancy, and she can't carry it past the third month, because of the werewolf scars. The Healer said there was insufficient integrity in the abdominal wall. Lavender wants to keep it, so they're going to do the incubator." He adds, "And she's the first Borderline Lycanthropoid Syndrome case to conceive, so it's an experimental regime."

He's quoting someone else, because he's never been particularly comfortable talking about bodily functions or, good Circe, _women's business,_ and the language isn't his in any case. Andromeda can feel him wrapping himself in that language, the shield and buckler of _someone else's words_ for his dilemma, because what he's describing is going to be an ordeal. There's no guarantee that the child will survive the incubator, originally developed for the nurturing of homunculi, not given that it's going to begin its stay there at the third month. The rest of the details she doesn't know, but from the look on Ron's face she imagines that they are not pleasant.

Molly must know some of those details, because she actually _gulps._ Then she shakes her head, slowly. Ron says, "It was going to happen eventually, you know."

That's when Molly catches fire. "Ronald Bilius Weasley! I cannot believe the _irresponsibility…_ That poor girl! You're going to put her through seven hells! Do you even know what you're talking about? It's not as if _you_ have any idea --"

Ron cuts her off. "Lavender wants children, and she knows she probably can't have more than one, and it was an accident, really, but we were going to have kids anyway. Adopt one or two while we worked on the one…" He frowns, and says, "We just hadn't planned on it happening quite this early. But it's not as if we didn't talk about it."

Andromeda is shaking her head. The idea of Ron talking to a girl about intimate matters… well, no, Lavender is not a _girl,_ but a war veteran and a woman. She must have known the risks before she began; after all, she's the St. Mungo's liaison. What Ron is telling his mother, Lavender very likely knew at the outset, likely from not too long after she awakened in the Dangerous Creatures Ward after the battle.

Ron confirms this, "That's what had her broken up about it, you know. Not being able to have kids." His voice breaks on those words, and he tries to compensate for that by squaring his shoulders and looking _down_ at his mother, whom he tops by at least a head. Unfortunately the effect is more puppyish than defiant, because the expression in his eyes is pleading: _Please, mum, let's play this out with some dignity. Let me be a real man and not get into too many details…_

The standoff continues in silence another few minutes. Then Molly says, "We'll wait this discussion until your father gets home."

***

Dinner is quiet and strained. Andromeda can tell from the exchange of glances that Harry knows what's going on, and Ginny as well, because the three of them have the air of co-conspirators dreading the executioner. Luna and Dean are aware of something in the atmosphere, but they're deep in conversation at the other end of the table. George is tucking into his food with an abstracted expression that probably has more to do with the anticipation of an evening with the accounts from the joke shop. Percy isn't home yet, likely dining out in Diagon Alley or eating at his desk at the Ministry (which Molly has told him not to do, because it's doing his digestion no good to eat while reading atrocity reports). Arthur hasn't been briefed yet, because he's looking from his wife to his youngest son with the air of a man who's been apprised of the existence of bad news but doesn't yet know the particulars.

After dinner, the three of them retire to Arthur's study—the room, in any case, where he spreads out the paperwork when there's an urgent project from the Ministry—and just before they close the door, Molly looks back at Harry and Ginny, and says in a terrifyingly level voice, "If the two of you were thinking about Extendable Ears, I have one word: _don't._"

She may as well have mentioned Bellatrix Lestrange, from the way that both Harry and Ginny blanch and scuttle off to amuse Teddy at the other end of the house. Outside, a quiet snow is sifting down in the darkness. Inside, the quiet is oppressive; Molly must have cast an impressive silencing charm on the door of Arthur's retreat. Normally you can't sneeze on the third floor of the Burrow without someone hearing it in the kitchen. The Weasley children didn't come by their talent for stealth by chance, but by long practice.

Andromeda sets the dishes to washing themselves and considers the question of how soon she'll be able to talk to Draco. Well, there's nothing for it; at least she can write him another note to let him know that she intends to have a word with him about a matter of importance. He knows what's good for him, apparently, because he's been a faithful if dull correspondent ever since she dropped her rather pointed hint.

In fact, his letters are some of the dullest she's ever read. There are the reports on the weather, and on what he studied for NEWTs that day (the syllabi are after all a matter of public record, and he's helping her to relive the revision experience in rather unnecessary detail), and what they served at breakfast in the Great Hall. Oh yes, these letters aren't entirely for her eyes. "I'm studying. I'm eating. I'm sleeping. That's what she worries about." Cissy is one audience, and any prospective reader at the Burrow is another; he isn't going to give a hint about his disability, nor is he going to write any hint of the torments of his soul (assuming he has them, which assumes he has a soul—well, that thought was Ron, but she can't help it). He reminds her of Nymphadora at her least communicative—well, Nymphadora before she nearly completely broke off contact two years ago—and she doesn't want to think about that.

At least Nymphadora didn't go to her death unreconciled with her mother, as if that thought were real comfort.

She watches Pigwidgeon disappear into the snow and fog on his way to Hogwarts. She has to admit a certain fondness for the plucky little owl with the absurd name; he's always eager to bear her messages, and surprisingly has no quarrel with the marathon flight to Scotland. He's rather tougher than he looks—rather like Molly, she thinks, and for that matter, Ron.

The delighted shrieks from the other end of the house catch her attention, and she goes to join Harry and Ginny, to see how well they're succeeding in exhausting him.

She walks in on the two of them beaming as Teddy lets go of the worn upholstered side of the armchair and takes his first unassisted steps, and his godfather and godmother catch him before he pitches face-first onto the floor.

At least there's something happy in this house… well, and there's her own sister's _blessed event,_ which promises to be just as complicated in its way as the fraught pregnancy of Lavender Brown. But she won't think about that just now; there are other fish to fry.

***

Something has been decided in that conference in Arthur's office, and at great length, because everyone emerges several hours later looking exhausted; Molly's eyes are red and she's still sniffling, Arthur looks ten years older, and Ron is holding himself with the air of a man who has vindicated himself at the cost of heart's blood. Everyone retires early, including Andromeda, who's hoping that Teddy will take the hint and sleep through the night.

Mercifully, he does—for the most part—though her sleep is disturbed, because it seems she's waking every hour anticipating his screaming. The ways of sleep deprivation are manifold, and it's the secret passage of parenthood, the incommunicable mystery. Childbirth is the very least of it… well, a not inconsiderable part, but as they say, _only the beginning. _ In an eyeblink there will be the other sort of night-time worry, when one's half-grown child doesn't come home when expected… or is at war. She hopes that won't be the case by the time Teddy is in his teens, but she's not optimistic.

The morning is snowy, with overcast clouds that periodically reveal watery hints of blue sky behind, as the blue shadows of the leafless hedgerow sharpen on the all-blanketing white. She's up too early, yet again, just finishing the last preparations for breakfast as Lavender Brown steps through the Floo.

That's only the first of the unusual things.

The next, surprisingly, is Arthur, who receives his morning _Prophet _from the delivery owl, opens it and lets out a half-shout of astonishment. Everyone crowds around to see what actually raised that sort of commotion from quiet Arthur Weasley, the man of few words—at which other voices take it up and amplify it tenfold.

Something on the front page of the _Daily Prophet _has succeeded in upstaging the arrival of Ron Weasley's fiancée.

***


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

**Author's note: **This story is being updated on Wednesday this week due to a snag with editing _Amends_. With luck, everything will be back to normal by Saturday.

***

Molly declares herself over the roar of the mob: "Well, I never! The shameless hussy!"

Harry and Ron are unintelligible, shouting across each other, and Ginny is looking indignant. George is leaning over their shoulders, and it's only Luna who seems uninterested, well, with her Dean as well, for they've only looked up from their colloquy when the noise reached thunderous volume. Andromeda is charmed by the bemused look with which Luna greets the universe… as if she expected nothing from it but the unusual.

It's left to Andromeda to greet Lavender, who smiles. "I suppose you've heard the news," she says. Andromeda nods, reserving judgment; she isn't sure if congratulations are in order, so she doesn't offer them. "Mother isn't completely happy about the circumstances, but on the other hand, I'll have my NEWTs before the baby arrives, and that's what matters." She asks, "Do you know what has them so excited?"

"Something in the _Prophet._ I suppose once they let it go, we can take a look."

Rather than filing into the fireplace to Floo to work, they've all scattered. Ron says to Lavender, "I'll be back in a minute," and he, Ron, and Ginny vanish into Arthur's office, while fussing over ink and envelopes. Red envelopes, as it happens. Molly nods absently at Lavender and then follows them.

Lavender raises an eyebrow. "I think they're off to send Howlers to somebody," she says. "Whoever it is, I pity them."

Andromeda crosses to the table to pick up the paper just as the Floo flares green and the features of Kingsley Shacklebolt appear in the flames. "Andromeda!" he says. "I was hoping to find you at home. Will you have some time open this afternoon?"

"I suppose so, but what's the matter?"

"Your nephew," Kingsley says. "The boy is a menace. Have you seen this morning's _Prophet?_" Inexplicably, she's reminded of Ted, who used to call Nymphadora _your daughter_ whenever she got up to some characteristic mischief—in particular, the mischief that required planning, which he invariably laid at the feet of the House of Black.

"No, I'm just about to have a look. It seems to have gotten everyone here fairly ruffled."

"Sorry, then. Have a look. I'm expecting a Floo call from the Headmistress once she's had a chat with the miscreants. Let's see, it will be Headmistress McGonagall, Healer Derwent, Madam Longbottom, and you. Will three o'clock do?"

"As well as any time, I suppose. I gather this is in the nature of an emergency?"

"Read it and decide for yourself, but my thought would be yes, on multiple levels. Three o'clock, then, at Hogwarts," and his face disappears.

Lavender is looking at the front page of the _Prophet _and her initial squeal of surprise has given way to laughter. "Oh, no, this is too much," she says.

On the front page of the _Daily Prophet,_ insouciantly unaware that he's putting on a show for all of wizarding Britain, Draco Malfoy is sitting at a café table, flanked by Hermione Granger on his left and Neville Longbottom on his right. He has his chin lifted in a characteristic expression of defiance, and he's cuddling up to Hermione with a lascivious wriggle that presses his left leg against her right; his left arm wraps around her shoulder, the fingers digging into her upper arm mere inches from her left breast.

The other hand is obscured somewhat by the young man in Muggle costume who's standing in front of the table, but when he moves to one side for a moment, it does appear that Draco's right hand is on Neville's thigh. If that weren't readily apparent, it's explicated at some length by Rita Skeeter's lead article, which speculates that the three of them are in a ménage a trois, but states that at a minimum, Draco and Hermione have finally been caught out in their clandestine affair, which goes a long way to explaining her objections to the imprisonment of his parents…

Lavender shrieks, this time in indignation. "She didn't seriously call Hermione the _Gryffindor femme fatale!_ She's saying that Hermione slept with Harry and Ron and Percy and Cormac… no, that can't be right. Cormac would have liked that but no, that's definitely not true… and Viktor Krum, and Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy and _Professor Snape!_"

This is now tilting into the realm of the surreal.

Lavender is now peering at the picture. "No, look at this," she says. "Neville looks _startled,_ and look at the expression on Hermione's face… if Draco still has all his bits after that, I'd be surprised." Indeed, the little Hermione in the picture has the beginnings of a truly impressive glare dawning on her face.

Dean and Luna wander over to peer at the paper.

Luna says, "Oh, it's that Nigel person that was bothering Hermione."

"Draco Malfoy's Muggle cousin," answers Dean. "Only now that they're in the same picture, they don't look that much alike. Malfoy wins for pale and pointy. Makes Nigel look outright round and rosy by contrast."

Luna looks at Andromeda and says, "We don't seriously think they're cousins. But his name is Black, you see. Nigel Black."

"He's a Muggle bloke that works with Hermione," Dean explains, "and he keeps asking her out on a date for coffee, and she keeps turning him down." He looks at the picture again and laughs. "And Malfoy appears to be staking a claim."

Lavender takes the paper out of his hands and stares hard at the picture. "I think it's just for benefit of that Muggle. Draco's looking at _him_. He's not even looking at Hermione or Neville." She smirks. "_Boys._"

Dean is laughing. "Pureblood dominance displays. Oh funny. Malfoy has finally met his match. Look at the expression on the bloke's face: he thinks Malfoy is _odd,_ but he's not overwhelmed with reverence for the family name." He peers at the picture again and adds, "Well, I would never have worn a full cloak and dragon-skin boots on the other side of the border. And he's got on jeans… I wonder who dressed him."

Lavender giggles. "Well, my guess it was by force—_Expelliarmus, _and then Neville knocked him down and sat on him while Hermione got him dressed. I never knew Draco to wear Muggle clothes."

Dean looks at Lavender quizzically. "So do you think Skeeter is right?"

Lavender tilts her head to one side, an oddly birdlike gesture, and says, "No. Certainly she got Hermione's CV wrong, nearly entirely. You know, she didn't ask the most interesting question of all—what were the three of them doing in Muggle London?" She points to the picture. "That's a Muggle café, it has to be, because I already know all of the cafes in wizarding Britain and that's not one of them. And that fellow with the overcoat is definitely a Muggle."

She doesn't need to spell it out—wizarding Britain is too small for a girl of good Pureblood family _not_ to know by face and name all of the even remotely eligible young men, and their exact heritage—not only the dubious 'blood status' but their family trees back seventeen generations, and the exact degree to which they are entwined with hers. Nigel Black—so Luna has called him—is not one of those faces.

Andromeda leans in and looks at this fourth figure in the picture. She can see the resemblance that Dean noted; he has some of her nephew's sharpness of feature, and similarly pale flyaway hair, in Nigel's case carefully tamed by a rather expensive haircut. (She knows the ways and means of such things, because of Ted's low taste for Muggle celebrity gossip. He was always pointing out haircuts that cost more than he had spent on his motorbike.)

And if she follows the posture correctly, there is a certain proprietary interest in the manner of that unknown young man, for he's looking directly at Hermione; to him, Andromeda's nephew is an oddity that has somehow interposed itself. Oh, yes, Dean has named it quite accurately: it's a dominance display; Andromeda would guess that the one thing that Draco hates more than being hated is being _ignored_, and that's just what Nigel Black the Muggle is doing to him.

"So, here's my guess," says Lavender. "Condemned man's last request."

The rest of them look at her with interest; Luna is mirroring that tilted-head gesture, with a dreamy look, as if she sees something mildly interesting four mountain ranges over, somewhere in Central Asia.

"So, they're looking after him at Hogwarts," Lavender says, "and everybody knows what he got up to sixth year. Imperius at a minimum." There's a collective gasp, because she's casually named one of the Unforgivables. "I met Madam Rosmerta at St. Mungo's and she told me. Honor bright. So he's up for life in Azkaban, no question. Think about it: the one thing that he's been kept away from all his life… is Muggles. So if you were going to be going to your death in three months, wouldn't you want at least a peek?"

They're considering this theory when Ron and Harry and Ginny emerge from Arthur's study, all very flushed and flustered. Ginny is saying, "I couldn't _believe_ that. And if she's fooling about with _Neville_ too,…" Andromeda recognizes the tone. It's the baby sister of Molly's mother-tiger voice. Somehow Neville is Ginny's adopted cause and she will tolerate no attempt to harm him, and if it's Hermione who's toying with his affections, then Hermione has to die. That simple. Ginny Weasley really is quite terrifying.

Harry says, "I think she's overworked and she's out of her mind."

Ron says, "I can't believe she threw me over for Draco bloody Malfoy."

At this, Lavender bursts into laughter, and doesn't stop until she has tears in her eyes. "Ron, you're not serious," she says. "Did you just hear what you said?"

Ron glowers, still angry, but already his posture of offended dignity is crumbling at the edges in the face of Lavender's amusement. Funny, Hermione could never have gotten away with laughing at Ron, but Lavender can and does, and what's more he relaxes… "So you don't think she did?"

"Oh _Ron_," she says, "do you even remember how she looked at him for six years? Or rather, _didn't_ look? Even when he had that totally twisted little crush on her for three years and kept saying those creepy things, she just ignored him. I think she honestly didn't see him."

Ron is only somewhat mollified.

"Parvati and I thought he was fanciable for a bit, I think it was fourth year, but really, he ruined it every time he opened his mouth. He was such a little boy. Still is, if that picture is any guide."

She leans over and gives Ron a kiss on the nose, in front of everybody. "Now you're not still carrying a torch for Hermione?"

"I suppose not," Ron says. "It's more the idea that she'd do something that stupid…"

***

When the kitchen finally clears, with Harry and the Weasley children stepping through he Floo to work, and Lavender to St. Mungo's, Andromeda finds herself standing and facing Molly, who is shaking her head at the pretty pass things have come to.

"Your nephew," Kingsley had said. Well, true enough. "That boy is a menace." Also true. She still isn't sure what that little drama in the café was about, really, but the impression it gives is highly compromising—first of all to Hermione, whose political efforts on the War Crimes Commission are thereby reduced to a rather sordid quid pro quo, and to a lesser extent to Neville, who looks as if he's keeping low company at a minimum, and then to the Headmistress, who let them all go out unsupervised… well, the list goes on, and it's longer yet if you consider second- and third-order effects, which of course Andromeda does. To take but one example: if Hermione's efforts in behalf of humane conditions for the detained Death Eaters are undermined by this putative affair with the Malfoy son, then Draco has succeeded in imperiling his own parents… clearly not his intention, but nonetheless an inevitable result of compromising Hermione.

Molly clears the breakfast dishes by hand, puts them in the sink and then sets them to washing themselves. She puts on water for tea, rather earlier than is their custom, which is the signal for a talk. She doesn't look as if she's yet decided what she's going to say; her face is still wearing an expression that's three parts puzzlement to one part outrage.

There's an indignant pecking on the glass, which makes Molly glance up; she crosses the room to open the window; immediately, one of the Hogwarts school owls flies into the kitchen, straight for Andromeda, shaking off snow with each beat of its wings.

She proffers a treat and the bird lets her untie the message… yet another letter sealed in green and silver with her sister's crest. Or rather, her nephew's, because the messenger tells her already who sent this.

"This had better be good," she says to herself as she unseals the letter.

It is, in fact, a travelogue of some perambulations in London a few days before—he certainly took his sweet time writing this up—with some notes about the standard landmarks (she remembers some of them from a long-ago date with Ted, who told her that she'd been living in far too small a world): the Houses of Parliament, the Thames, the Tower of London; no picture galleries were included—ah, there's even a note about that (Muggle pictures are uncannily still, and so his guides spared him that)—oh yes, and the expectable observations of how _populous_ is the world outside the Leaky Cauldron. She smiles in spite of herself; she still remembers the shock of that.

However, there's nothing yet about the chief matter of the current scandal…

…no, there's a note about a café, surprisingly civilized (yes, he's a little snob, but what did she expect from her sister's child), with really quite good chocolate eclairs and hot tea, which were more than welcome because the weather had been rather beastly. (It wouldn't be a letter from Draco without a weather report, would it now?) He enumerates just about everything about the place, including the interesting observation that apparently Muggle bankers are not Goblins… everything, except for the even more interesting configuration that got caught on camera.

She wonders if that's evasion, or if he sent this letter off before he had any idea that they'd been photographed. Lavender's last observation was of the strange reflections at the edge of the picture, from which she concluded that it was shot through a glass window and cropped. There's none of that surprised-rabbit look of miscreants caught out in a photographer's flash; they're all captured to the life, but there's no awareness of an outside observer.

She still would like to have an explanation, if nothing else to hear what sort of twisty rationalization he'd produce for that. _Points will be awarded for stylish prevarication_, she thought. Just like Mother.

Molly cocks an eyebrow at the missive.

"That would be himself."

"Yes, my sister's child."

"So he has an explanation for _that_?"

"No," she says, "though any explanation he has had better be _very_ entertaining, because the rest of this isn't. Not in the least."

Molly pours out tea for them. It's in lieu of stronger drink, no doubt. Andromeda is still staring at her nephew's letter, wondering what train of disaster this is going to set in motion. Perhaps he's inherited his father's talent in that direction. No, she doesn't have to be polite in the privacy of her own head; Lucius is a fool, and his son looks to be no better.

Molly says, "I told Ronald she was no better than she ought to be." She considers the teapot wrathfully. "That went on altogether too long. Maybe she is talented, but she had almost no inclination for housework and she will insist on gallivanting about London by herself." Andromeda sips and listens. "They're all very well, but they're not our sort, and the line has to be drawn somewhere."

It's one thing to defend their civil rights; it's quite another to let them marry into your family. Andromeda understands that much, without Molly spelling it out. It's a vulgar and discreditable thought to some, no doubt, but she has to admit there were times that she woke up next to Ted in the middle of the night and wondered why she had married an _alien_ who had cost her everything: family, social standing…

… but if she hadn't married Ted—

Well, that's another world, on the other side of darkness, and she can't answer questions about it. It's a place she's never been. She and Ted did have fights, bitter ones, and she wonders now if she should have heeded the slight mockery in his tone when he shepherded her along that embankment and the crowds poured by. She was thunderstruck, and he was _laughing_ at her, because of course it was perfectly ordinary to him, as unicorns and merpeople and the great squid were to her.

Of course, she'd been too absorbed in the time at the way his shaggy fair hair felt under her fingers, and the warmth of his arm around her, and the way that the crowds—no, the human flood—utterly ignored them as they stood by the railing across the river from the Houses of Parliament, in the overcast afternoon, and kissed. Nothing they could have done in Diagon Alley or at Hogwarts, so they stood outdoors in the middle of one of the world's largest cities, with tourists from around the planet surging around them, to have a moment of privacy. No, she wouldn't have noticed the mockery then; she goggled and he laughed, and all she heard then was affection and desire.

But later there were the fights, the ones that turned on such a profoundly different view of the world that there was no throwing a rope bridge across the chasm. The one in which he first called her family medieval, said that they'd advanced not one whit since the doors to the greater world had been shut from the inside, that he was surprised not to find them axing each other…well, offing someone with a wand was ever so much cleaner, wasn't it? And holding these other creatures in thrall (he was horrified by house elves) wasn't going to buy them a sliver of mercy when the Great Day of Reckoning came. It was capitalized, too, when Ted said it, Dies Irae, the all-consuming day of social wrath when the lower orders would revolt in spectacularly violent fashion.

"Arise, ye wretched of the earth," he sang, quoting some Muggle song she didn't recognize.

She'd shaken her head at that, and been yet more puzzled when he proceeded to tell her about it in detail, bits of Muggle history that she hadn't known, and the fact that she didn't know them made him yet angrier, that _her kind_ could so completely ignore the history of the overwhelming majority of the human race, the ones who _worked_, the ones who didn't have magic…

There were fights in which she wasn't sure that he really saw her, rather than Bella or Cissy or even Lucius. What she didn't remember after he died, but now, listening to Molly say it in so many words: yes, the Muggle-borns are a wild-card; they bring the instability of their own world, that world in which even the clothes change every year, into the solidly founded wizarding world. They bring in their own notions and try to apply them where they don't fit, or at least where no one ever thought of fitting them. Not that this is always a bad thing: there's Justin, of course, and there's Ted Tonks himself, who gave her cousin Sirius an outlet for his rebellious hatred of the Pureblood traditions of the Black Family, which might otherwise have turned in who knows what direction.

She leans her face over her tea, breathing in the steam and trying not to let the tears show. What did she do with her life to be exiled from her family and then to end by inheriting all their mistakes? Cissy's horrible little boy, by all accounts a surpassingly nasty piece of work, and his sister that's as yet a suspicion, not enough yet to do more than upset her mother's stomach. She thought she was done with child-rearing and here she is with three children. Kingsley had been quite pointed: "your nephew," as if she were responsible for what Draco in his high-strung pride would do without thinking.

Teddy at least she's fond of, but in the dark watches of the night, ragged from sleep deprivation, she has thought of him as _Nymphadora's mistake_, the child who should not have been… and she wonders, too, about Nymphadora's _other_ mistake, as she watches Molly pour the tea.

Molly hands her the cup, and she looks up to see those hazel eyes looking at her with worry. Andromeda says aloud for the first time, "I'm stuck with him, and he has _no_ common sense. And I have a very, very bad feeling about how all this is going to go."

***


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Andromeda stares at the teapot, and the cups, and the snow-covered garden that's visible through the cozy kitchen windows with their basil in little pots and the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. There's the red-haired, round-faced, sympathetic Molly across from her… and she realizes that she is sitting probably in exactly the spot where Nymphadora sat when she came to _soak up tea and sympathy_. Molly is a creature of ritual, and her tea ceremony is no less stylized than that of a medieval samurai.

The tears are burning her eyes, as if she'd just had that fight with Ted fifteen minutes ago, instead of more like thirty years. They're angry tears; she still remembers the way it felt to curl away from him in bed, carefully pulling away from that warmth that ordinarily drew her, into the chill at the edge of the covers. Angry because she'd left everything for this person—position, wealth, and yes, racial and class pride, even physical safety—and it was becoming clear that he was _not her kind_, so utterly alien that when they fought, she grew inarticulate in her fury, and it so little became a daughter of the House of Black to howl like a wolf that she ended by clamping her mouth shut until her teeth hurt from clenching them.

Some time in the dark of that night she had finally fallen asleep, and woken again with the moonlight in her eyes, cold and blue-white; Ted lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs thrown wide like a starfish, face relaxed in sleep so that it became once more the face with which she had fallen in love—the sweet, rumpled boy so cheerful yet vulnerable in his ignorance of her world, and more than willing to ask her. There was no armor to him, really; he was a soft creature of another sea. He was not a young grandee utterly sure of himself, who _knew his place_; it had been that quality of softness, of edgelessness, of _possibility_ that had first drawn her. She had seen something in him that she had never seen before, certainly not in any of the boys to whom her parents thought to marry her. Even her cousin Sirius, whom she liked and found charming and funny, was quite sure of himself, his edges, where he left off and the world began. Ted was on a perpetual journey of exploration, taking things in and tasting them and accepting or rejecting them according to whether he liked their taste. He had his own ideas, that came out of another world.

Lying awake, she had felt the temptation. She still could have all the things she thought she was regretting—if she left now. Even an impossible marriage didn't have to be forever. She could leave, after all. In any case, whether she stayed or left, his name wouldn't be recorded in the official genealogy. After all there was Madam Longbottom—in full, Emily Augusta Sophia Sophonisba Chattox Longbottom—with no mention of her first husband's surname, because it wasn't an _alliance_ but a misalliance, a mad passion that should have stayed _on the side_ and never been acknowledged in the marriage court. Instead, that seventeen-year-old witch, still waiting for her NEWTs scores, had run off—eloped—with a Muggle, and insisted on as much of the traditional handfasting ceremony as could be managed without the parents in the picture.

And it was a full decade after his death in the Muggle Great War before her family made overtures to take her back, and that because her brothers were dead and otherwise there was no one to carry on the duties of custodian of the Chattox holdings.

She might find her way back, if she repudiated this marriage, if she applied, not to her own family, but to Pureblood circles less stringent than theirs… except who might she marry in that case? The ugly fact of the matter was that however elegant the men of the _right sort_, she didn't find them attractive, and with a married woman's knowledge of the matter, she found it impossible to imagine any of them in bed with her. Those _definite edges_ that were so esthetically admirable from a distance would cut you bloody if you touched them.

So she decided that she really was caught between two worlds now. She couldn't go back, so she could only go forward. And to go forward was to forget: to forget that they'd had that fight, to forget that there was such a thing as an unbridgeable gap, to recognize that the secret of crossing the chasm was _not to look down_.

She turned back to him, moved into the orbit of his warmth, put her arms around him and kissed him on the forehead. Unexpectedly that woke him; his eyelids fluttered open and those fathomless dark eyes looked up at her, and his sweet sleepy smile welcomed her back from her self-imposed exile. His arms tightened around her to return the embrace with all his ordinary warmth, which is to say that they did not fall asleep again until the pale hour before moonset.

In a novel, that night would have been the night that her daughter was conceived. As it was, that was six months later, because the moon that had woken her that night was the full moon of midwinter, and her daughter was conceived at midsummer and born nearly exactly on the vernal equinox of the next year.

***

And now, all that's gone, Ted and then the daughter they raised together. Not without additional fights, she should admit—if it weren't the name Nymphadora claimed for herself, it was the scandalous clothes she wore—the short skirts or artfully ripped jeans, the leather jacket and industrial boots and striped tights and jewelry that looked like machine parts—the distaff version, she realizes, of the costume in which Ted had fitted out her cousin Sirius, and to which he had taken as if it were his natural livery: the uniform of the army of rebels.

It's she and Nymphadora who were the rebels, she realized; Ted was only and ever himself.

Nymphadora had her father's dark eyes, and his cheeky, slovenly ways, but her mother's bone structure and her adamantine will—her pure inheritance from the House of Black, that glittering obsidian to which yielding was as alien a notion as the world beyond the wall of the Leaky Cauldron—a will which perversely expressed itself in a irresistible gravitational pull toward the Muggle world. Ted's brother ran a pub in London, and Nymphadora and her friends took to hanging about the place as soon as they had their Apparition licenses. They'd jaunt into Hogsmeade and then Apparate to London to drink pints and play darts.

_Without_ magical assistance, Nymphadora emphasized. That, and billiards, at which Charlie Weasley, it turned out, showed unexpected genius. She was dead clever at it, too, though not loud about it, because that was part of the game; she'd play the part of Charlie's inept girlfriend, and amuse the pubgoers, and someone would take up the joking offer to play a game against them.

Then she and Charlie would take them, every time. Eddie Tonks thought that Charlie could have gone professional as a legitimate billiards player, but the two of them together, she and Charlie… well, they were quite the team, that's as much as he'd say; he knew they were at a good school and he wouldn't encourage his niece to go into a shady line of work, but if she ever did…

It made Andromeda wonder, sometimes, if her daughter really were as clumsy as she pretended, or if that were an elaborate piece of indirection to disarm observers. Except, of course, for the trail of broken crockery and furniture that she personally witnessed, and the handful of precious Black family heirlooms that she'd endlessly Reparo'd until she finally learned to keep them out of Nymphadora's reach…

The thing about Hufflepuffs, Andromeda thought with some disgruntlement, was that when they got up to mischief, they did it in _teams_ and _gangs_ and _covens_ and _cabals._ The average Slytherin, or even a clutch of them, didn't have a patch on the Hufflepuffs for conspiratorial skill. That went for Eddie Tonks, as well, for all he was a Muggle; he and Ted were as close as Charlie's twin brothers, and as fond of mischief. The two of them laughed too loud, and talked about football and motorbikes and Quidditch, in which Ted had a keen spectator's interest to the extent of some amateur but rather profitable bookmaking, whose proceeds had gotten Ted a half interest in the pub. Until things got hot in the late war, he'd fill in from time to time when Eddie was short-handed at the bar.

That was a step down in the world, to be married to a man who was so conspicuously in _trade,_ and it did Ted no good to point out that Eddie shared a profession with Madam Rosmerta and Aberforth Dumbledore; Rosmerta and Aberforth were of conspicuously good family, and anyway neither the Three Broomsticks nor the Hog's Head could properly be compared to Muggle establishments.

And when Nymphadora got older, she took her father's side in this as well, reminding her mother that after all, she was _in trade_ as well, with her little bookshop run out of the spare room at Flourish & Blott's. You could call it a cultural landmark, but in Pureblood terms it was even more dodgy than Eddie Tonks' pub in London. It was the place to which Pureblood youth (and not a few of their elders) resorted for their occasional fix of the forbidden, Muggle paperbacks and their weirdly still comic books.

"Mum, you've got the drop on everybody in wizarding Britain," Nymphadora said. "You know what they've been _reading_. Even the Clone couldn't resist." (Though Andromeda didn't like to contemplate the likely scene at home after Lucius caught his son with a cache of paperback science-fiction; no doubt that was another black mark against the name of the family blood-traitor.)

Andromeda reminded her daughter that the shop accounts were confidential and she wasn't to go noising about who'd been in there, or what they'd bought; discretion was of the essence in this line of work…

"… cause it's _dodgy,_ mum," said Nymphadora, with Ted's cheeky grin.

Then there were the fights about Nymphadora's renunciation of her Pureblood given name; Nymphadora's Muggle clothes, as utterly indecent to the Pureblood eye as Sirius' tight jeans and black leather jacket, and very much in the same style; and her habit of gadding about London. Andromeda is quite sure now that there was more to those expeditions than anyone was telling; more than once Nymphadora came home in the wee hours with her hair and clothes rather more mussed than usual, with the smell of cigarette smoke and alien perfume on her, and once with a streak of red across her cheek that Andromeda, in her harried exhaustion and worry, took for blood, and Nymphadora removed with a swipe of the back of her hand and said with a smirk, "Nope, mum—lipstick." As if daring her to connect the dots…

… well, only at this very late date had she done so, because one didn't _speak_ of such things in good Pureblood circles, where they safely sheltered behind proper arranged marriages. Andromeda was perfectly well aware that Rodolphus fancied boys, and Bellatrix fancied… well, _that_ she wasn't going to think about, even now, though it was an open secret at the time. And everyone knew that Callidora Black had married into the Longbottoms for the sake of the greenhouses, but spent the proceeds of her best-selling books on gardening and household charms to buy a cottage for her woman friend.

Those fights took on more and more bitterness as Nymphadora left Hogwarts with a dazzling array of NEWTs and an equally dazzling reputation for elaborate mischief; as she entered Auror training and her gadding about London came to include her colleagues. On her graduation with honors, she'd treated Alastor Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt to a round of drinks at Eddie's pub—and that had exploded into a row of unexpected proportions, because Andromeda was mortified that Shacklebolt, her old colleague from the First War, not only had seen but spent time in Eddie Tonks' Muggle pub.

"It's not as if you have this secret life, mum," Nymphadora had said. "Everybody knows you married a _mudblood_ and you've got a _half-breed _daughter."

"Nymphadora! What have I told you about that kind of language!"

"Tonks, mum. My name is Tonks." And with that, she'd slammed down down the stairs, breaking something along the way—Andromeda distinctly heard the break in the tattoo of descending booted feet as Nymphadora tripped, and the resulting crash—and Apparated with rather more of a thunderclap than good form allowed.

The year before last, the year that she's now thinking of as the phony war, she and Tonks—Nymphadora—were off again and on again, in a rhythm that reminded her piquantly of her early fights with Ted, only with longer silences. Weeks and even months would pass without a word, and she was never sure if it were Order business or a continuation of their feud.

Like the once Nymphadora showed up, cheerful and cheeky, from her patrols at Hogwarts, with news that she'd seen the Clone and he was looking peaky and distracted.

"I passed him in the hall, and he had no idea who I was," she said, around a mouthful of half-chewed ginger biscuits. Andromeda resisted the urge to tell her not to talk with her mouth full, and resisted as well as she could the thought that she had picked up her plebeian table manners from Charlie Weasley, when she knew perfectly well that Nymphadora's own father was no example in that respect.

Andromeda frowned. "There's no reason he would recognize you," she said. "You haven't seen him since he was two."

"But he should have noticed the family resemblance." Nymphadora smirked and rearranged her features, shifting her bubble-gum pink spikes into a jet-black mane and hardening and sharpening the bones of her face, until twenty-year-old Bellatrix Black sat before her, insouciantly munching biscuits and dropping crumbs on the table.

Andromeda shuddered. "Don't do that." The things that Nymphadora would do with her face gave her the shivers sometimes.

It was almost as bad as the time Nymphadora went through the dusty family albums trying on the faces and bodies in the photographs, and Andromeda walked in on Regulus Black standing in front of the mirror in Hufflepuff robes. She hadn't handled that well _at all. _No. She had screamed and kept screaming until fourteen-year-old Nymphadora came back to her own features and figure.

***

That year was bad, that year most of which Nymphadora spent at Molly's, becoming more and more depressed, her looks and her hair fading; there were flares and flashes of the old Nymphadora, but those became increasingly rare. She'd thought nothing of it at the time, and then out of the sky like a thunderbolt—well, as one thunderbolt in the horrifying succession that followed the death of Dumbledore—came the announcement of her marriage to Remus Lupin.

That led to another fight, with Ted standing aside bemused, and Andromeda helplessly repeating the question, "What's _happened_ to you?" So much had been unspoken between them, that she couldn't make the question more specific, and Ted had never been the one to spell things out. At the distance of two years, now, she realizes that Ted's great talent was for taking things in stride and for observation, but the closer to home it was, the less likely he'd offer the observation unasked. To be just, she realizes that the entente between them was on both sides; they'd silently agreed to back away from certain topics, agreed to disagree on the very things about which she and Nymphadora had their differences.

So Ted never spelled out, as he might have, that (to put it in his parlance) it was _birds_ her daughter fancied, that the odd change in her manner, and apparently in her preference of mates, had happened in that year she'd been hanging about Molly's kitchen, which was the unofficial canteen of the Order in its second incarnation. That it was doing her no good to spend time there—and here she'd thought nothing of it, because it was Charlie Weasley's mother.

It's only been bit by bit that she's put the picture together, beginning with Charlie's suspicions and continuing from offhand comments by Fleur, who still remembers with rather unpleasant vividness the nearly universal disapproval from the Weasley women. (Fleur doesn't spell out the other part, which is the foolish goggling of the younger Weasley sons.) The heart of the matter is that Molly Weasley wanted just about anyone other than Fleur as a match for Bill, who was the crown jewel, the eldest son and the vanguard of the Weasley advance, with his glamorous job as a curse-breaker for Gringotts and his international travel.

***

It was the fall of the Ministry that brought her daughter back to her. Nymphadora and Remus showed up to help her pick through the pitiful wreckage after the Death Eaters destroyed her bookshop: all that paper, so it had taken no more than a few Incendios and Reductos to reduce it to flames and then shambles. She had only the accounts, which she took home with her every night; how ironic, that care for stock that no longer existed… She'd stood in the kitchen of their little house, hugging the magical ledger to her chest and rocking where she stood. _Lucky that she had the accounts_; the thought repeated itself inside her head in a cheerful voice, until Remus put his hand on her shoulder and by and by, she released her hold on the book.

Lucky indeed. Lucky she hadn't been in the shop when it happened, lucky that no one else had; unlike some others, her shop was singled out for destruction after hours. Others had not been so lucky. She still doesn't know if it simply fell at the end of the assigned roster of destruction, the last item of the business day for some lowly junior Death Eater, or if this were a consideration being extended to her as the sister of Bellatrix Lestrange.

How did they live through the succeeding year? On the income from Ted's share in his brother's pub, on a share of Nymphadora's salary as an Auror, which she could scarcely afford with her unemployable husband, on the produce of the back garden, on the kindness of colleagues in the Order, on the hospitality, finally, of those same colleagues when the little house became too dangerous and Ted had to flee.

Finally, on very, very little, after Nymphadora was suspended from her position as an Auror in a wave of racial and ideological house-cleaning as the minions of Voldemort grew bolder in their victory. There were too many strikes against her, of course; she was the daughter of a noted blood-traitor, and of unacceptable racial background (the Auror corps was too sensitive an organ of the Ministry to tolerate dubious Half-bloods), and, the final blow, married to a racial undesirable. The sins of the mother were redoubled in the daughter.

Unspoken in all that, of course, was that her daughter was likely down in someone's books as an Order member or sympathizer, and it was some kind of luck—or the notorious disorganization of the Ministry—that prevented her from being disappeared from her little flat in the middle of the night. Or perhaps it was the common knowledge that she was Mad-eye Moody's protégée, and as such likely to give any intruder more fight than they might like. (As Nymphadora's mother, Andromeda could testify that her daughter's good cheer did _not_ extend to the half-hour after waking, especially if she were wakened suddenly.)

***

And now it's all gone. All gone, and she's sitting across the table from Molly, cradling the cup of tea in her cold and trembling hands, and still angry… at what? At whom? Molly has just stopped talking, and Andromeda realizes that she has not heard a word of it, except a bit to the effect that you can't let the wrong sort out in public because blood will out. No, Molly wouldn't have said that in so many words, would she?

But the essence of Molly's argument is that the scene in the paper is Hermione's fault, because she would gallivant about London by herself. Absurd. She's not by herself in that picture, and both she and Neville are respectable enough in their own right to cancel out the disreputability of the one between the two of them… her nephew, whose possessive and loveless embrace is the matter of scandal. Andromeda picks up the _Prophet_ once more and looks at that photograph again; watches the motion, indecent by design, that brings Draco's body flush against Hermione's, his leg plastered against hers from hip to ankle, and his arm wrapped around her shoulders, his long pale fingers clawed about her upper arm; it's not only the knitted sleeve of her jumper that he's compressing, but the arm inside it. She wonders if Hermione woke up the next morning with fingertip-sized bruises on her upper arm. She wonders, too, what happened after that picture was taken.

Abruptly she's even more furious, as if someone has woefully tricked her—as indeed they have. Cissy has, for certain—how else does she come to stand godmother to a child who's nothing more than a suspicion, caught so early only because they were Decommissioning blood defenses, an operation so ticklish that even the faint shadow of a three-days' embryo would throw a grotesquely elongated disturbance into the Family signature. That child, carried to term, is a twenty years' sentence. She has the certainty, dead-cold at the bone, that her sister will not survive Azkaban, and she will raise the little girl with the ill-omened name. And Kingsley has just told her that she's to be the custodian of the junior war criminal that Cissy and Lucius between them reared (yes, with a little help from Bella, she must admit). Already Kingsley said to her "your nephew" as if she had any power over what that little fool did.

That criminally ungrateful, foolhardy, ugly-minded brat of a child. He only looks like a young man; he's a child, an irretrievably selfish and irresponsible child.

Her fingers itch to take up the fiery quill and corrosive ink and to write him the Howler of the century: to tell him how he's compromised the people who saved his wretched life, that he hasn't acknowledged any of his debts—not even life debts, the ultimate debt of honor—that he hasn't acknowledged the ties of blood, the blood that his self-centered mother and arrogant father claimed to cherish above all else, that he has done nothing but damage, that his very touch is poison, that she repudiates him now and forever and he can bloody well find his own way across the desolation of the post-war, and see how far it will get him to look like the resurrection of Lucius Malfoy. His face is his fortune, indeed, and the cards do not look good.

The rage passes through her like tempest or firestorm and leaves her empty, hollow and trembling. Nothing for it—how much good did any of Aunt Walburga's Howlers do, for all she was a master of the form? And she can't repudiate this new family tie, because in a moment of weakness she gave her word—not to Cissy but to Kingsley. It is a sacrifice for the Cause, except he knew better than to phrase it that way. Instead, he told her about the power politics of the situation, and seduced her into it under the unspoken motto of her House, 'Too Clever by Half.'

***

Molly pours out more tea, and Andromeda drinks it, and listens, this time, while Molly talks about the situation with Ron and Lavender, which doesn't please her, exactly, because they both should have waited… Well, Andromeda thinks, remembering Molly's observations about _good girls_ and contraceptive Potions, that's a nice thought, but she's dealing here with all the volatility of the late teens, and the aftermath of a war into the bargain.

Doesn't Molly remember being young? Andromeda certainly remembers, and caution was no part of it. Once you've been in battle, or someone close to you has, you remember only that life is finite and all too fragile, and anything you don't seize in this moment might not be available to you in the next. And all in all, Ron is trying to do the right thing.

Molly sniffs that Lavender left without talking to her. Well, that was unavoidable, wasn't it? There was all the fracas about the _Daily Prophet_ article, and Lavender didn't have a choice about leaving; she has appointments at St. Mungo's, both on her own behalf and in her capacity as an officer of the Remus Lupin Foundation. Lavender is a solid, responsible girl, for all her flibbertigibbet surface. One could do worse for a daughter-in-law. What Andromeda doesn't add, because it would be taken wrong, is that Lavender is a Pureblood, which ought to make her much more acceptable. And she's more than eager to have children, even at the risk of her life.

Hermione, she suspects (but doesn't say) has likely resigned that notion. As a bond-slave to Gringotts, she and all her issue are hostages; furthermore, it's not clear that she would want to bear a child for a world that more than once tried to kill her. Because, as Dean pointed out, Hermione's children, no matter who their father, would be witches and wizards. Whatever the hidden strain in the Granger line, it's blossomed into frightening power in the daughter, and that power will not be diminished in her descendants, whether she takes as their father a Pureblood or a Muggle-born or even, like Madam Longbottom in her first marriage, a plain Muggle. Rumor has it that the short-lived daughter of that long-ago misalliance did survive long enough to prove herself a witch.

Molly frowns into the teacup, whether at her guest's inattention or at her own thoughts. Andromeda knows herself distracted, and recognizes as well the fear that Molly will make trouble with her with Harry. Well, in worst case, she can seek out other allies. Kingsley owes her for what she just undertook, and…

The Floo flares and there's his face. "It's three o'clock, and everyone's here," he says. "Hogwarts, Headmistress's office."

Obediently, she nods, asks a few minutes to get herself in order; there's been a bit of unexpected fuss here…

Kingsley smiles, with that combination of shrewdness and warmth that many find irresistible, and says, "Of course. Ten minutes, then?"

"Oh, that should be more than enough," she replies, and with an apologetic nod to Molly, she leaves the table and goes upstairs to put on her dress robes and to put her hair in something like order. Molly will keep an eye on Teddy while she's gone, and then… her mind drifts back to that smile of Kingsley's. It's only tradition that the Shacklebolts Sort into Ravenclaw: that, and their love of observation. He would have done as well in Slytherin. She could say the same of herself; she's got a bit of that Ravenclaw love of knowledge for its own sake, the magpie love of gleaming facts. The ideal temperament for a Watcher, indeed, which is probably why she and Kingsley have always gotten on together so well.

***

When she steps through the Floo into the Headmistress's Office, the coven has already gathered. The damage control committee, to be more accurate: there's Headmistress McGonagall, of course, and Minister Shacklebolt, representing duly constituted authority; Madam Longbottom, on behalf of her grandson; Healer Derwent, who is at the same time Hermione's boss and her physician, a member of the War Crimes Commission and as such Draco's medical supervisor; and lastly herself, as the unofficial guardian to the catalyst of the whole mess.

The conversation is largely practical, the first item of business the path they're going to take to contain the damage. Minister Shacklebolt and Healer Derwent will be vouching for Hermione's integrity, with the Headmistress to back them up on her prior relationship with Draco Malfoy, which is largely one of contained hostility.

Unfortunately, in the course of the investigation, certain embarrassing facts have come to light.

On questioning by Healer Derwent, it appears that Neville _has_ had some sort of relationship with Draco, the character of which was caretaking until, well, Draco made _overtures_. That liaison was off-again on-again and appears to have petered out, at least according to Neville's testimony, which, Derwent mentions, he offered to give with the assistance of Veritaserum, an offer which was necessarily declined.

And in present tense, there have been one or two _slips of judgment_ on Hermione's part. More in the nature of indiscretion on the battlefield, Derwent adds, given that the first such incident occurred after rescuing him from the Auror who was ready to hex him (or worse) after he knocked Hermione off her broom in flying practice.

"He did _what_?" Andromeda asks.

"They were flying Quidditch drills," Derwent says, "and he forgot himself."

Andromeda finds herself rolling her eyes. No less than she'd have expected; he can't do one stupid thing; it has to be a multitude. The hair-trigger temperament of the House of Black crossed with the arrogance of the Malfoys seems to be a disastrous combination.

She sighs. "So what is my part in this?"

Kingsley says, "To talk some sense to him, I would hope."

"Do you think he'd be likely to listen to me?"

"He's writing to you."

"Under orders from my sister. How likely do you think it that he'd heed anything I said?"

Kingsley said, "If we assured that your sister had the correct ink and stationery for a Howler, I would expect she'd be writing to him in the next day or so."

The Headmistress says that that is completely unnecessary, as she has already made it clear to Mr. Malfoy that he has placed his parents in deadly peril by his exhibition, and that seemed to have had the appropriately chastening effect on the boy. Whatever the faults with which one might legitimately reproach him, he is fiercely loyal to his parents, and he's aghast at what he's done.

Andromeda mentally takes back everything she ever thought about Nymphadora having been a difficult child. Draco promises to be several times worse, and worst of all, he's of age, so he could well tell her to sod off because he's a grownup.

She says, "So let me understand: my nephew has had some sort of … _something_ with _both_ of them."

Derwent nods. "It's not unheard of. You came through the First War, didn't you? People do strange things under stress."

Andromeda has to admit that she did see some interesting things then, which she has put out of her mind since… such as the time she walked in on Sirius and Remus, both in a rather advanced state of undress and paying not one whit of attention to anything but their, erm, post-battle _stress reduction_. No, she won't think about that, given that one of the parties to that interesting scene was her favorite cousin, who had proposed marriage to her when he was seven, and the other was later to be her daughter's husband, not to mention the namesake of an important political organization. She had always known that Sirius was an omni-sexual rover, but she had not known one way or the other whom Remus might fancy… and she'd have preferred the lecture to the demonstration in that case. But that is neither here nor there.

Yes, she is aware of the variety of human sexual expression, particularly under battlefield conditions, and it's best to leave the acknowledgment at that.

She nods, and Derwent looks smug for a fraction of a second.

Madam Longbottom, who has been silent until now, says that this whole business puzzles her deeply because she has it on good authority that her grandson has had a long-standing romantic interest in Miss Granger. "Which, unfortunately, he hasn't had the gumption to actually _say_. I've told him, 'Neville, my lad, you have to put in a bid, because every wizard and his mother is going to be on this one.' I had no idea he was going to be edged out by a Malfoy—or worse, sleep with one." She shakes her head. "He seems determined to be put on the shelf, that one." Her expression brightens, "But at least he hasn't taken up with any of those girls who are looking for a fling with a hero."

Shacklebolt says that the main point here is to be sure that they've gotten Hermione in the clear, given her conspicuous role in the war and on the War Crimes Commission. The other complications can be dealt with later.

Madam Longbottom says that she will most _certainly_ be having a word with her grandson about clarifying his intentions toward Miss Granger.

Andromeda says that she has every intention of laying down the law to her nephew, but that one shouldn't ask for too much given that the boy owes at least three unacknowledged life debts. She counts them out: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger (twice), Neville Longbottom. Aristocratic pretensions aside, the boy appears to be little short of a barbarian. She will do what she can with the unpromising material.

Kingsley and the Headmistress sigh, more or less in unison, and allow that no more can be asked than that.

And with that, the meeting adjourns and they go their separate ways to take up the task of containing the disaster.

***


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

When Andromeda returns through the Floo, she's exhausted. It's coming on toward late afternoon, and she still isn't used to being abroad in the daylight. There's the glowering Malfoy eagle owl waiting with a letter from Cissy already, a letter frantic and indignant in equal parts, because of course Cissy and Lucius get the _Prophet;_ the only good thing to be said about the scandal making the front page is that Cissy has been systematically hiding the front pages from Lucius, so he didn't notice anything unusual when she did it this time.

Andromeda sends her sister a curt note by return Owl to the effect that she'll sort this out; Cissy needn't worry.

She may as well set her feet on the path, because procrastination will only make the task worse.

Molly tells her that Teddy is still asleep, having prolonged his mid-afternoon nap. Andromeda hopes that this doesn't mean that he'll be up all night, but thinks that she'll seize the opportunity to write the necessary letter to Draco announcing the interview that they're going to have about his unacceptable behavior. She emphasizes that the little performance in the café, captured by the _Daily Prophet_ photographer, is the very least of what she means. There are some basic decencies which must be observed, and she expects he will not like being reminded of those, but he should know that she has her sister's full sanction to take the matter up with him. And he really is in some danger of fatally disgracing himself, where it really matters, which is in the conduct of one's mortal obligations.

She puts the quill down for a moment and sighs. It's just a hair shy of a Howler, less the red envelope and the ear-splitting volume, and she can't think of how to say it in a gracious way. She never had to do this with Nymphadora, whose peccadillos were more in the line of excessive high spirits—getting out after curfew and broom-racing over the lake, and on one memorable occasion, flying her broom down the corridor at Hogwarts between classes. In the dungeon corridor by the Potions classroom, she remembers, and she also remembers the conference she had on the subject with Severus Snape, who was beside himself with rage not only at the impertinence, but the nearness with which she had approached several shelves full of highly volatile Potions ingredients of which he was taking delivery at the time. (She hadn't known that his face could turn quite that color of beet-red.)

Yes, those were the days, but never in all that time was it ever a question of Nymphadora disgracing herself or her family. Impulsiveness and risk-taking, yes—and Alastor Moody had words to say about that as well, when she was going through Auror training—but never negligence of honor. Nymphadora might have claimed her father's surname with rather pointed enthusiasm, but she might just as well have claimed her mother's, because in her swagger and dash she was a Black of the classic stamp.

She hears Teddy's little voice below, and Molly soothing him, and puts the letter away to finish later. Harry and Ginny will be home soon, and they'll try to cajole him into doing some more walking, and hopefully they'll tire him enough that he'll sleep.

As it is, the evening meal goes much more pleasantly than the morning one had; Lavender returns, and sits next to Ron, and they all converse politely as if the uproar of the morning had not occurred. Luna has news to share as well; her father has been released from house arrest and Arthur has invited him to stay until they can get the house rebuilt. Andromeda wonders how well that will work out, but Molly at least is showing no opposition. She's concentrating on showing her better side, given that this morning Lavender saw the entire household in emotional dishabille.

Lavender is a diplomat, too, and she takes the conversation into much safer waters, with talk about the NEWTs and the wonders of the Potions lab that Justin has set up in his London flat; he's done some marvelous room-expanding charms to create a vast laboratory in what previously had been an ordinary walk-in closet. All round, they agree that Justin is a fine chap, and has done quite good work for St. Mungo's.

And for rather purer motives than _some_, Arthur adds, which is the first and last time in the dinner conversation that even tangential mention is made of her sister's husband.

***

Two days pass, during which Teddy Lupin obliges one and all by sleeping through the night, and it's Thursday morning that Andromeda feels sufficiently restored to take up once more the letter to Draco. She finishes it mid-afternoon and dispatches Pigwidgeon to Hogwarts. Her missive should reach him around six o'clock, either in his room or in the Great Hall. She heaves a great sigh; she's done her duty and can relax for a bit, until the interview can be arranged. Mercifully, the Headmistress takes quite seriously her disciplinary role _in loco parentis_, and has made it quite clear that Andromeda need not worry about the rest of it.

It's in thanking her that Andromeda first feels her throat close against the words that _cannot_ be spoken. What she meant to say: "Thank you for doing this, because after the trials I know I'm going to have my hands full."

The second half of that sentiment died aborning. Fidelius. Oh yes. Until the trials—and quite likely after—she's never going to be able to speak of the _arrangement_ she just made with Kingsley. How it will actually play out in court will be a lovely little family drama, in which she will be asked in public, before the court, if she will supervise Draco's parole, and will all too impulsively and nobly take responsibility for the wayward nephew who is nonetheless blood kin, in spite of the ravages visited on her family by Lucius, Narcissa and Bellatrix: the reign of terror of the Death Eaters, during which she was deprived of livelihood, husband, and daughter. It will play, she decides, very like a classical Muggle opera: grand gestures, fine words, set to excellent music in an awe-inspiring setting—the full Wizengamot sitting in solemn judgment in its great amphitheatre, with the defendant chained in place in the great stone chair—no doubt, to acclaim and photographers' flash. She will have to consider her valedictory gestures to Lucius and Narcissa, to signal the reconciliation that she doesn't feel now (and likely won't feel then) but the demonstration of which is a political necessity.

Had Kingsley not been Minister for Magic, he might have made an admirable theatrical director.

Teddy has decided that walking is a quite amusing sport, and is now pulling himself up with the aid of whatever furniture comes his way, as well as his grandmother's knees when nothing better is available. He falls down, but doesn't cry; he picks himself up with the same look of cheerful determination she remembers from Nymphadora at that age.

The afternoon darkens in snow and fog. One by one, the Weasley children return home for the evening meal. Ginny and Ron are the first arrivals, Harry following some ten minutes later with some things he'd forgotten at the office (they're now in the stage of the Auror training where they're being introduced to the rigors of paperwork), then George, with his arms full of design notebooks, his own and Fred's. Luna and Dean come in from a sketching expedition in Muggle London. Luna is full of enthusiastic chatter about Muggles and their holiday observances, which seem to consist of rushing about at high speed under colored lights, with bags full of parcels. She has been questioning Dean about this, and is still unclear on the connection between the religious significance of the Christmas holiday and the odd behavior she's been observing in the London shopping district. But it does make for amusing pictures; she shows a notebook full of lively little figures rushing to and fro.

Percy has already sent word that he won't be home until late; he's eating at his desk, because there's nothing for it and there are twenty Muggle-born refugee families waiting on the outcome of tonight's paperwork.

Arthur arrives last, looking harried, and brightens when Molly kisses him on the cheek.

Outside, the evening is deep blue and cold; inside, the Burrow is at its cheerful best, with the glow of yellow lamplight and the savor of Molly's exemplary cooking. Andromeda is amazed once more at how fast Molly's household can change character from contentious to cozy, but for tonight she'll be grateful for a bit of peace. There's been far too much excitement for one week.

Around seven o'clock, just as everyone is pushing back their chairs, the Floo flares green and the face of Headmistress McGonagall appears in the flames, asking for Andromeda Tonks and Arthur Weasley, _alone_. There's been an _incident_ at Hogwarts, and she would like to take counsel with the two of them.

Molly and the others look puzzled and a little resentful, but they duly leave the room.

McGonagall looks more harried than Andromeda has ever seen her—well, she didn't see her in the wake of the Battle of Hogwarts, and that might have been equal to her current expression—and once she's assured that they have been left alone ("No Extendable Ears," Arthur says, "I made sure of that.") she states her business.

They mean to transfer Draco Malfoy from house arrest at Hogwarts to secret shelter at some Order stronghold, just as soon as he's healthy enough to travel by Floo, which task Madam Pomfrey is engaged on even as she speaks.

Andromeda feels ice cold. Arthur is asking which locations she has in mind.

The Burrow, or Shell Cottage.

No, Arthur thinks not. The Burrow is impossible; he already knows his sons' opinions on the subject of Draco Malfoy. And Shell Cottage might work, except that it wouldn't look good were outsiders to inquire later. Bill was disfigured, she must know, as a direct result of the Death Eater raid inside Hogwarts two years ago… an action in which young Malfoy was instrumental.

McGonagall nods, and says she thought as much, but Kingsley had asked her to inquire discreetly nonetheless.

Then she turns to Andromeda. She'll be summoned by Floo when the arrangements have been made; would she be ready to travel? It won't be overnight, but she'll need to approve whatever arrangements have been made. A formality, but under the circumstances it wouldn't do to contact Narcissa or Lucius. They wouldn't take it well, and in any case, they're not allowed beyond the threshold of the Manor without an escort of six Aurors. Traveling beyond the Manor gates would require formal Ministerial permission and would invite more attention than is desirable under the circumstances. What isn't said: if this attack could happen at all, and worse, within the walls of Hogwarts, at very best someone has blundered.

It isn't until the end of the interview that Andromeda is able to ask what it was that befell her nephew.

McGonagall's expression goes from harried to grim. Another mob attack, some of the same children as before, only this time it wasn't Muggle tactics but Cruciatus. The Auror on duty did not show up. At Miss Granger's insistence, the matter is being investigated, as it was the same individual who was poised to attack Mr. Malfoy on the Quidditch pitch. The children would have had their victim at their mercy all night had Mr. Longbottom and Miss Granger not fortuitously returned to get something that Mr. Longbottom had forgotten. They had been en route to St. Mungo's and after that had planned to go their separate ways, as has been their habit every other Thursday for the last three months.

Andromeda is puzzled; why didn't they just Summon whatever it was?

McGonagall smiles, and it's small and shrewd. "I believe that Mr. Longbottom was following his grandmother's advice and prolonging his time talking with her. And I believe she was doing something similar." She adds, "Or it simply may be that they were both raised more or less as Muggles." She says, "We have a few others to contact tonight. I'll Floo you when he's settled."

***

It's nine o'clock when the Floo flares again, and McGonagall summons Andromeda to Hogwarts. She takes her cloak, nods to Harry and Ginny, who are looking after Teddy, and reminds them to be sure he's put to bed on time—she's trying to get him on a regular sleep schedule—before announcing, "Hogwarts, Headmistress's Office," and stepping into the darkness awhirl with other hearths.

McGonagall is waiting for her, looking even more tired than earlier. She tells Andromeda that Draco has been settled with Augusta Longbottom at her house in Lancashire, which is not quite as secure as Shell Cottage but should do, under the circumstances.

Certainly it's preferable to the Burrow, Andromeda thinks, although you could hardly find an Order member who's precisely neutral on the subject of the Malfoy family.

It's some minutes before Madam Longbottom answers the Floo call; at first they're talking to a shadowy, mostly silent House Elf, who then vanishes, leaving a view of a cavernous kitchen, where candle flames flare and make eerie shadows on the ceiling. Then Augusta Longbottom's fierce aquiline features show in the green flames, and she confirms that the boy is there, although not conscious—though Andromeda should come, anyway, because there's a small matter that needs attending.

Andromeda inquires of the Headmistress whether she should return by way of Hogwarts or directly to the Burrow, and is reassured that there's nothing more to be done there, so she can go directly home when she's done. McGonagall and Pomfrey have already consulted with Madam Longbottom, and all the necessary particulars have been communicated.

That settled, she throws the handful of sparkling powder into the hearth, calls out the address of Longbottom House, and steps through.

On emerging in the other side, she's greeted by Madam Longbottom, who tells her that everything is settled, and she'll take her upstairs to see Draco. They traverse the darkened and drafty rooms of the stone house, and Andromeda draws her cloak about her. The austere and flinty character of the house, with its furniture unchanged since the nineteenth century, accords well with that of its mistress. The family portraits murmur among themselves, as Andromeda follows Madam Longbottom up the staircase to the second floor. There's a faint light from under the first closed door in the upstairs hall; as they approach, the door creaks open and the light proves to be the firefly glow of wandlight. Neville's face is lit by it, and Hermione's as well, as the two sit side by side in straight-backed chairs; the object of their vigil lies in the narrow bed under the window, his pale hair spread around his face and his features relaxed into sleep—no, not ordinary sleep, for he's far too still.

"Madam Pomfrey told us to give him a dose of Dreamless Sleep as soon as we got him settled," Hermione says. She has her brisk sensible manner on, but it's wavering a bit and Andromeda can hear a slight tremor in her voice. She and Neville both stand to relinquish their chairs; Andromeda accepts the gesture, sitting down. Hermione nods to Neville, and he seats himself again.

In the faint light of the wand tip, Draco looks as if he's carved from white marble; his eyes are closed, his lips slightly parted in sleep. The only hint of what passed before is the hand that lies over the covers, clutching a corner of the blanket.

Neville says, "They had him for about an hour or so, but I don't think they were casting Cruciatus the whole time. I think they were taking breaks in between to tell him what was going to happen next."

Hermione adds, "Madam Pomfrey said he was in good health otherwise. Just a few contusions where he hit the wall when he thrashed. She said he'd probably be all right."

Neville whispers, "If we hadn't come back…" He's shivering, and Andromeda sees Hermione rest her hands on his shoulders until the shivering stops.

"But we did," Hermione says. "And he's going to be all right." She adds, "As much as any of us are."

Andromeda takes the hand that's clutching the covers, which feels cold and nerveless—Dreamless Sleep does odd things—and uncurls the fingers, then lays it back down on the blanket. That satisfies her sense of order; he ought to be at much at ease now as possible, because the moment he wakes he's going to remember the hell he's just lived through. Hermione looks at her and nods, understanding the gesture.

Madam Longbottom enters, carrying a creature bundled in a blanket. Up close, Andromeda sees that it's Ron's owl Pigwidgeon, looking very much the worse for wear. "He was trying to deliver a letter. Flew all the way to Hogwarts, I'd warrant, and then had to divert to Lancashire. Plucky little fellow, he is."

"Is he all right?" Andromeda asks, remorseful—it was her letter, after all, which close up she sees still tethered to Pigwidgeon's leg. He must have arrived too late to deliver the letter to Draco at Hogwarts—and then gone to find him at Longbottom House.

"Oh, he'll be fine after a good rest. One of the Weasleys' owls, is he?" Andromeda nods, and takes custody of the bundle. All this effort, wasted, to deliver a letter that she isn't sure she would want her nephew to read now; this time, she'll take the trouble to deliver the message in person.

"Let me know when he wakes up," Andromeda says. "There are some matters we have to discuss."

Madam Longbottom assures her that she can come and go freely to visit with Draco. Family is family, she says. Nothing to be done about it. More or less the same thing she'd said twenty years back, in that long-ago vigil in the Spell Damage department at St. Mungo's. Andromeda remembers the young Healer whose sister had died in the bombing of Manchester, and the baby in Frank Longbottom's arms, who is now a strapping young man. The players change roles, age, and die; outsiders are drawn into the dance, but the same web of enmity and blood persists.

It's past midnight when she comes back through the Floo to the Burrow, to return the somewhat restored Pigwidgeon to his place in what passes for the family Owlery.

***


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Less than a week later, there's another letter from Cissy, who is feeling the coldness of the season. No one is sending Yule greetings to an interned war criminal, and it reminds her all too much of the deathly quiet that year that Lucius was in Azkaban. Cissy writes that she certainly learned that year who was _not_ with her, and in the next sentence thanks Andromeda for being a faithful correspondent. As the year plunges into the final darkness of the winter solstice, she has to say that it's still nowhere as dark as last year at this time, and for that she's grateful. Because truth to tell, things just got worse and worse that whole year… which she doesn't want to think about now. Things are fine. She has no complaints, except that the Manor is cold; she doesn't feel it so much, especially in her current condition, but Lucius can never get warm.

Unspoken there: a year in Azkaban will chill you to the bones for the rest of your life.

Andromeda thinks it's a grim business, what's about to happen: _five years _in Azkaban, even for a sister she hated and pitied by turns, is a serious sentence. Five years being deprived of every good thought, every scrap of remembered happiness… quite enough to drive one mad. It takes a very peculiar constitution to withstand that sort of thing, perverse and willful like Sirius, grimly devoted like Bellatrix.

Cissy isn't like either of them; for all her Pureblood pretension, she doesn't go in for causes so much as individuals. If it's a matter of compromising her principles in favor of someone she loves, as she did for her son when she betrayed the Dark Lord, then she'll make the choice without quailing. It might be her saving grace, that weakness. Without that, and her sense of practical politics, Andromeda would never have received that condolence note.

How sincere was that? Hard to tell, given how much Cissy has to gain from even a partial reconciliation. Andromeda is quite clear that she's maneuvering to assure her children's safety once she's in prison. Everything smells very strongly of _final arrangements_ and it doesn't help to know what her sister does not, that the hated husband will be dead within a few years of his imprisonment.

"Given the state of his health, it's a death sentence," Kingsley had said, "without troubling anyone's conscience." Only set up the conditions, and let nature take its course.

She looks out into the deep winter dusk. It's the hour when the snow-covered roofs and trees are brighter than the leaden sky, and thoughts of mortality are all too inevitable. The garden and the hedgerow look dead, reduced to their bare bones, sticks and branches; there's a trail of footprints, leading into the snowy dimness, that may be rabbits or may be gnomes.

In any case, this time of year inevitably calls up comparisons with other times. Last year—well, last year was bad by this time, very bad indeed. Ted was on the run, and she and Nymphadora were living on the produce of the back garden and help from friends. She and Ted had both lived on the border between the worlds, and with the fall of the Ministry, things had gone rapidly to the bad, between the boycotts of blood traitors and the blatant persecution of so-called Mudbloods…

The secret hasn't felt like a burden, exactly, until this moment when the weight of it descends. Her brother-in-law will likely be dead, and her sister mad, by this time next year. She can't say goodbye, of course, because she suspects that the Fidelius charm would foil that, but she can take the time so that she will not have regrets later. She imagines it a year hence: _both of my sisters are dead_, which would be near enough to the truth. She'll be the last of them, even if they all could have lived to a hundred and fifty in peaceful times.

When have they ever had peaceful times?

Of course, going to see Cissy—for that's what she's contemplating—means going to see Lucius as well, not a delightful prospect, but what is he going to say about it? Surely he must understand that she's the go-between… if indeed this hadn't been his idea in the first place.

And then there's the question of the money.

Of course there's no pension from Nymphadora; they stripped that when they suspended her as an unreliable. Quite convenient, that: one less debt owed in the nasty post-war.

If Kingsley is right, then Draco is going to be assigned some sort of probation, and it will be under her guardianship, and that means that he will be living in the household where he offended so many… which doesn't strike her as a particularly good idea. If this goes through, she's going to want some other arrangement, because it doesn't do to contemplate what would essentially be riot control duties. She has other things to do besides keep the peace between aggrieved adolescents.

The money is worrying, and the tension of living at the Burrow is bad enough, given her recent meditations on Molly's likely part in her daughter's regrettable marriage. Really, she ought to talk to Harry about some sort of arrangement that isn't a poor-relation waiting for gifts of cash. Sirius had that legacy by way of his renegade uncle, and there had been talk even at the time of sharing it with his fellow rebels; he'd said himself he didn't need all of that money, she'd been cut off without a knut, and Ted had nothing in the wizarding world and scarcely more in the world of his birth.

It was one of many things for which he never got around to the paperwork… well, they'd had that conversation in early October of 1981, and other things were occupying their attention.

She's pacing back and forth, and finally realizes that it's not inside her own head that this question is going to be decided, but in Kingsley's office. And so invoking the privilege of old friendship, she Floos him.

For an old friend, for an old comrade, for the as-yet unofficial guardian of a key pawn on the chessboard of post-war politics, Kingsley can make time. It's no more than half an hour before he has cleared his calendar and she steps through the emerald flames to the private entrance to his office at the Ministry.

***

It doesn't look much different from the rooms he used to keep during the First War: books on the shelf, a few framed pictures—Muggle, she notices, not wizarding—and the rest of the room is taken up with Official Business. It's a fairly impersonal office, for all the sense of warmth.

He gestures her to the most comfortable chair, which she notices is tweaked into the likeness of her favorite chair in the house she shared with Ted. Kingsley always was a dab hand with Transfiguration and the little psychological touches to put a person at ease… _so he could wrap them around his little finger for reasons of state_, she adds cynically.

She lays it out for him: her position at the Burrow is no longer tenable, not if she has guardian duties for the Order's least loved hostage, the one whose face alone makes him a target, whether from the political forces of the erstwhile enemy, who'd like to recruit him, or the self-appointed avenging angels of the post-war victors. Within the walls of that house she has heard talk of vengeance on the Malfoy family—

"Yes," Kingsley says, "I know about Ginny Weasley and Addie McConnell."

The second name is only vaguely familiar.

McConnell has been suspended for her part in the incident at Hogwarts, Kingsley explains. She was to have been on duty the night that young Malfoy was abducted from his room and tortured in the very hallway she was supposed to be guarding. The independent reports of Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger make it very clear that it was someone else's agenda at play there; those children were too young to know of Alice and Frank Longbottom, except as names. Someone knew of their bond with Neville, though, and convinced them that they would be doing him a favor by destroying the last of the line that all but killed his parents. And they're underage, so they're a logical enough stalking-horse for other powers to exploit.

Neville had reported as well on the talk he had heard among those children in the months they'd been working in the greenhouses. He's been concerned as well about Ginny Weasley, quite independently. Already in October there had been a family council of concerned friends: Neville and Hermione and Dean and Luna and Ginny's brother Percy, the latter three of whom were taking a risk, given that they lived under the same roof as Ginny. They talked to Harry, who appeared up till then to be fairly oblivious about his fiancee's state of mind…

… well, as oblivious as he could be, given the incidents that had already occurred: two assaults on Hermione, one in a pick-up Quidditch game at Harry's birthday party, and the other, distinctly sexual in intent, which had occurred in the loo of the Three Broomsticks. Then there was a conversation, some of which Percy had overheard in the kitchen, of the Burrow, about intent to torture and kill Lucius Malfoy.

She hadn't realized they'd had a witness, but then Percy is quite discreet, it would appear.

Harry had been asked to persuade Ginny to seek help at St. Mungo's for her use of Firewhiskey and Potions. The Healer who had treated her after the battle, and had followed up with the young veterans thereafter, had recommended against her continued use of Dreamless Sleep; at her advice, Molly Weasley had destroyed all stores of that Potion at the Burrow.

Hermione's report went into the same details of the attack on Malfoy, as well as the conversation that had occurred between Neville and the children, which she had found distinctly disquieting. She quoted as well a remark that Percy had made in their meeting with Harry, that it wouldn't do for people to think that the extrajudicial killings of the post-war were originating in the Auror department. She had written quite a lot about the use of death squads amongst the Muggles and included some rather disturbing extrapolations about likely response from what might remain of the Death Eaters or their sympathizers.

She had spoken as well of her dissatisfaction with the direction that the War Crimes Commission was taking, with the apparent strategy of singling out symbolic defendants—a ritual sacrifice, she called it—without making any attempt to change the political structure of the wizarding world or the tendencies that had given Tom Riddle a foothold in the first place. She confessed herself appalled at the extent of Pureblood racism, and rather fearful for the future, given how widespread it was. She laid out for him as well the exclusion of herself, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Dean Thomas from post-war recruitment of Aurors, based upon their blood status. Quite plainly, because once Dean Thomas had been reclassified as a half-blood, he had received a letter.

The stack of parchment on Kingsley's desk is quite high.

"She's on a tear," Kingsley says, "not that I can blame her. And she's thorough…" He picks up another sheaf of parchment. "Demographic analysis," he says. "Our population, estimated from 1692 forward to the present, with extrapolations to 2052. She ran estimates with and without postwar casualties, under two or three different scenarios, including wholesale exodus of the Muggle-borns."

He picks up another stack. "Which Percy Weasley assures me is already underway. Thirty percent of all Muggle-born adult witches and wizards have already been repatriated—or have repatriated themselves. He and Granger have apparently been having unofficial briefings over lunch and they're coming to the same conclusions."

"Which is what?"

"Wizarding Britain is within a generation or two of extinction as a viable culture." He frowns. "Granger was quite pungent about it. She said we'd been arranging the deck chairs on the _Titanic_, and Voldemort was just a symptom of the problem. The crisis nobody's admitting is that we're dying out, and the Muggleborns are the only thing that's been saving us.

"And there's more in there, but that's the essence. Strictly unofficial, of course, and they've both jumped the chain of command to put these on my desk, so of course they don't exist. Not officially."

Andromeda notices a third stack of parchment. "I suppose that's not all?"

"Oh no, far from it. That"—he gestures at the third stack—"is Augusta putting her oar in. Thank Merlin for the Quick-Quotes Quill, or there would have been no hope of getting all of that down. Augusta on a tear gives old Tom a run for his money, though luckily for me she does scruple at Crucio. She prefers the body-blow to the conscience. Much more effective. That woman is a monument of rectitude."

He shakes his head.

"I will just say that it's a good thing that line is not numerous," he said. "I don't think I could take a full chorus of Longbottom virtue."

Andromeda smiles, mordantly. "Not to mention the Weasley and the Granger connection."

"Merlin forbid. Percy Weasley is a wonder, I'll say. Chip off the old block—he's done Arthur proud. Molly too, I mean Molly at her best."

Unspoken: not the post-war Molly, not the ambiguous figure who may have tampered with Nymphadora.

"So," Andromeda says, "what came out of this investigation?"

"McConnell won't say, but she certainly didn't act alone. We're considering whether we go with Veritaserum, or try to turn her. Ginny Weasley is in a dangerous state. I had to pull Harry in here, and he hemmed and hawed and finally confessed that the two of them had been fencing about her going to St. Mungo's since Halloween."

"So that's why he left the ball early."

"It would appear so. They had some sort of falling out, and then they've been arguing about it back and forth all through November."

Andromeda says, "Is Ginny involved with these… death squads?"

"No, she's just been guilty of loose lips. Actually did us a favor, because McConnell took her for a sympathizer and said a whole lot more than she ought to have. Something of a hothead, she is. Once we put Ginny Weasley's testimony together with Granger's deposition… well, Rita Skeeter did us a favor, too, with that photo scandal."

Andromeda frowns. "How so?"

"What Granger said about her indiscretions with young Malfoy… there were two separate occasions when McConnell was baiting him: after the Quidditch incident, and then… and then, escorting him on the way to Hogsmeade with Granger, she was repeating the rumors about his mother. She thought Granger would sympathize, except she didn't count on her _principles_: apparently she objected to McConnell implying that your sister was a _Death Eater whore_."

Andromeda nods, feeling a chill at the heart. It was her sister who had given over Hermione to be tortured by the other sister, the one she'd rather not remember.

Kingsley tightens his lips in a colder version of his characteristic smile. "Granger's convictions are, shall we say, mostly bulletproof. I think the only witch in Britain who scares me as much as she does is Augusta Longbottom."

Andromeda is taken by the urge to laugh. "You know that Augusta wants a match between Granger and 'her Neville'?"

"Oh yes, no mistaking that," Kingsley says. "I can't think of a more terrifying prospect. Irresistible force, meet immovable object. Stubborn, hard-working, and brains to spare. Which is to say, exactly what we need just now, if we could get over this Pureblood supremacy nonsense."

"So what is the state of the Auror corps?"

"Well, there look to be two active factions, McConnell's lot—and she _didn't_ act alone, but she won't name the others—and then there's the lot who rather enjoyed their work under the Thicknesse Ministry. Then off to the side there's the hapless career sloggers: Dawlish and friends.

"In short: a mess, a farrago, a pretty kettle of fish. And your daughter's name came up, I should add."

Andromeda looks up. "How so?"

"McConnell again. She mentions her a lot—I think they were involved. Friends for certain, maybe more. They were in training together."

Andromeda should have known better. She wasn't happy about her daughter fooling about with Muggle girls, but a fellow Auror…

"It isn't clear," Kingsley says, "but what's plain is that Tonks was another bloody shirt for her to wave, just like Moody and the Longbottoms. McConnell lost her mother and her sister and her brother, which is rather a lot to be going on with." He sighs.

Andromeda thinks that she could well have been an avenging Fury like McConnell, under other circumstances: she has lost a husband, and a daughter, and a son-in-law. Not to mention her favorite cousin, and a good number of friends of her own generation.

She sighs. As good a time to bring this up as any.

"To come back to the original matter," she says, "we're going to have to come to an understanding about money. I can't bring my nephew to the Burrow, unless you intend to set a twenty-four hour guard on him there, and we both know just how reliable the Auror corps is at this point."

She reviews the brief, though he knows it well: when she married Ted, she was cut off without a knut, and the two of them have been living on the border, with income from her bookstore—destroyed under the Thicknesse Ministry—and his share of his brother's pub. And the house, that's not safe, they both know that. Harry has been _helping out_ but that's unstable, very much at his whim, and thus far his whims have been generous, but she won't predict how things will go if he's forced to choose between his adopted family and the guardian of his least-favorite schoolmate.

What she needs is a steady arrangement, which she and Sirius had been talking about back in '81, and again in '95, before the business at the Department of Mysteries. The problem was that they never got around to the paperwork, and Harry is rubbish at money matters. It's _awkward_ to talk to him about a separate settlement for her and Teddy, and if it came to maintenance for Draco and his sister, well, she doesn't see Harry being entirely happy with that.

Kingsley frowns. "Yes, we're going to have some difficulty over that, because the terms of the probation are going to be punitive. I'm going to see what I can work in there in the way of loopholes, but it's not going to be easy. He's going to have the devil's own time finding employment in the wizarding world…and I would imagine he hasn't the skills to get on in the Muggle one, has he?"

Andromeda suddenly has the vision of that little Pureblood patrician working at the bar in Eddie Tonks' pub, and suppresses the urge to giggle. That's about the only job she has the patronage to offer him, given that the bookstore is defunct—and even if that weren't so, she isn't clear that it would be best for her business to have the Malfoy heir working at the front counter.

Kingsley presses his fingertips together under his chin, in that pensive statesmanlike gesture that tells her he's frantically playing for time.

Andromeda leans back in her chair, looking at him, and then in an imitation of Augusta Longbottom's dry manner, she says, "Well, Kingsley my lad, we are well and truly fucked, are we not?"

He startles at the vulgarity of the language, then gives her a slow, mordant smile. "Yes, I would say that's a fair summary."

Andromeda starts to laugh, unxpectedly, and the laughter goes on around her, and it chills her to realize how much it sounds like Bellatrix. She laughs until her chest hurts, until the tears run down her cheeks.

"Well and truly fucked, no Dark Lords required," she says at length. "Just as Granger says, done in by our own. We have met the enemy, indeed."

Kingsley says, "And that's not the least of it. Granger is wanting to know about the deal with the Goblins, and exactly what her obligations are. I think she may be contemplating… repatriation."

"But what about Augusta?"

"Oh, methinks Augusta would have no objection. The north is different, you know. They've been contemplating secession for a while. On the North American model: full cross-training in the muggle world, hybrid technology, cooperation with sympathetic elements on the Muggle side of the border…"

Andromeda says, "But this isn't North America."

"It's effectively been the model in the north. Augusta's staff is almost entirely Muggle-born, and they're all university graduates. My suspicion is she's been in separate communication with Sinead Pierce O'Halloran, and the Irish secessionists, not to mention the Icelanders. Voldemort's lot didn't pick up a one of Augusta's people; they were all sheltering in Ireland or Iceland during the war and Apparating in to harass the Death Eaters."

Kingsley draws the stacks of parchment on his desk into orderly parapets once more. "So we have to talk to young Harry about signing over some part of the Black legacy to you. I don't think he'll have a difficulty with it if we couch it properly. There's the house at Grimmauld Place, or a share in it; there's the vault, and there may be some overseas properties as well. We'll set up a meeting."

Kingsley sees reason, at least, so she doesn't have to think about preventing a third lynching attempt on her nephew at the Burrow.

"There's one more thing," she says. "My sister. She's been asking me to visit. And given what you told me, this is probably the last opportunity, isn't it?"

Kingsley considers her for a long minute. "Well, as it happens, I'm looking at her request this very moment, to visit her son wherever he is. We did tell her that he's been moved. She wasn't too happy with the choice of Augusta Longbottom, but I told her she should be glad it wasn't Molly and Arthur Weasley."

Andromeda sighs. "I don't suppose you told her any of the rest…"

"If you mean what her darling son's been up to with Augusta's grandson and Miss Granger, the answer is no. He's of age, and if everyone has the sense to keep mum about it, it shouldn't be a difficulty."

Andromeda resists the urge to roll her eyes, remembering that article in the _Prophet_ and the rather too extensive conference afterward. The Pureblood hardliners have at least one cabal in the Ministry, or Rita never would have felt impelled to stalk Hermione, Neville, and Draco through Muggle London.

"You know you'll have to go to the Manor, unless you want to meet them on neutral ground at Longbottom House." She nods. She realizes that she's never set foot there since her sister's marriage.

Kingsley says he'll look into it. Yes, she understands that she'll be subject to the same search as any other visitor, and if her request is approved, the Auror department will be sending her a list of contraband that she cannot bring onto the premises. She nods. Of course. Her sister really is in prison already.

***

They end the meeting in an amicable discussion of that which has formed the substance of their conversations these past thirty years, which is to say: the practicalities of money, power, and impending danger.

After she has stepped through the Floo to the Burrow and the fire has died back to ordinary flames, she finds herself standing in front of the fireplace, with her cloak pulled about her shoulders in the chilly blue dusk. The last of the light from outside only provides a contrast to the warm flickering illumination; it certainly isn't enough to see by, nor does it give any warmth.

***

**Author's note, or a backward glance o'er traveled roads:** No one will believe it at this point (least of all your humble author), but this story really did begin as a tiny background document for _Amends_ and _Storm Surge, _to answer the question of when and how Narcissa found out about her son's disability. It now has a life of its own, not least thanks to its readers, with yet more chapters to come.

**Acknowledgment of debts: **I am grateful for the loyal following of silent readers, as well as those who have left reviews, signed or unsigned. In particular, I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, to date: Vicky, Becky, Sandra, Laisai, jackie, sue, vickie, Joanne, Samiam, sandradee, Matt, shimmeringskittles, Shadow82ABN. You have left real-time commentary that is everything a writer dreams of: a direct picture into the reader's mind.

The detail, forthrightness, civility and intelligence of the signed and anonymous commentary has been an amazement to me, given how much political dynamite has accumulated in this tale as I examine the realities behind Rowling's mask of 'once upon a time.' Rest assured that I feel a surge of anticipation when I see any of my reviewers' names pop up on a review alert.


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

It's Yule that's the real season of ghosts, Andromeda reflects, as she busies herself about the kitchen, Molly Weasley's kitchen, organized very much on the lines of her own. She flips through the handwritten ledger of recipes, very like the one she kept in her own kitchen, to find the treats that will summon the ghosts of better times.

The ginger biscuits in the shape of stylized suns: those were Narcissa's favorite as a child. Molly's ledger of recipes is comprehensive, she nods in approval, as it includes the alternate recipe with cinnamon and cardamom.

Those recipes go back centuries, some variants as old as the Crusades, for there were Pureblood witches and wizards discreetly assisting that business as well. Like their Muggle counterparts, they enjoyed the largesse of the newly established spice trade; alongside, there sprung up a trade in spellwork and magical artifacts, as the magical craft of China and India made its way to Palestine and Byzantium by way of the Silk Road, and thence to Europe.

The ginger sunbursts are traditionally served at New Year's, and (for those of more traditional leanings) are a customary offering on the shrines of the family dead. When Andromeda was a child, there was a children's ball preparatory to the Ministry ball, traditionally held on New Year's Eve, near the culmination of the Yule season. She remembers the year that she was finally old enough to be permitted to attend; she was seven, the traditional age of reason, but Cissy was only five, and Bella, from the dizzying height of her nine years, gloated about how they would be leaving the _baby_ at home. Cissy, who had dreamed of balls and beaux for nearly all her conscious life, long before she knew what either meant, burst into tears. Once Bella had swept off in the grandeur of a Pureblood princess preparing to receive her court, Andromeda hugged her little sister and told not to cry, that she'd bring her something nice from the ball.

So at that first ball, she had a sharp eye out for treats to bring home for her baby sister, which distracted her from the wonders that otherwise would have wholly enraptured her: the fairy lights and the music, the elaborate robes of the grownups and the near-transfigured splendor of other Pureblood children; there was Rodolphus Lestrange, returned home from his first months at Hogwarts, glittering like a prince of fairyland in high-collared robes of emerald and blue shot with silver; the older Prewett boys with their fair skin and red-gold hair set off by green and blue and violet robes, and their sister Molly… yes, she forgot how much older everyone was in those days, when a year made the difference between being permitted out in public rather than remaining in nursery purdah. Rodolphus and Fabian and Molly drifted by with their cups of punch and their delicately balanced plates of biscuits, in the empyrean of the big children.

She lay in wait for a moment when the table of refreshments would be unattended, and then, more swiftly than she would have imagined possible, she darted in and swept handfuls of treats into the inner pockets of her robes, that conventional but useless tailoring imitated from the adult original of her child's robes, of no purpose whatsoever since as yet she had no wand to carry and no rolled parchments to consult. But they would serve quite well to conceal any number of ginger biscuits.

Years later—two wars and innumerable family ruptures later—she still remembers how she returned from the ball to the nursery and woke her little sister to lay out before her the treasures she had carefully guarded all night. Only at her mother's repeated insistence had she consented to dance the minuet; to guard the delicate biscuits secreted in her wand pockets, she held herself even more stiffly upright than called for, drawing an approving look from little Lucius Malfoy, who even at the age of six prided himself on perfect form. Cissy's eyes opened very wide; a cautious little smile crept across her face, and then her whole face lit up, as if the sun had risen early. She closed her delicate pale fingers around one of the golden ginger sunbursts, sparkling with sugar, and whispered, "It still has all of its points."

Andromeda nodded.

"Tell me about the ball," Cissy said, and then she sat and nibbled the biscuits (not dropping a single crumb) while Andromeda racked her brain for all the details, and told them with as much color as she could. Cissy wanted to know about everyone's robes, and who danced with whom. Even then she was enamored of Lucius, who according to Cissy was the very prettiest of the little boys, with his fine pale hair and grey eyes, not a look that Andromeda cared for herself, even then. Cissy pried out of her every detail of his costume and coiffure, from the exact shades of opalescent color in his silk dress robes to the pattern of silver embroidery on his collar and cuffs to the exact style in which his shining long hair was swept back from his brow and fastened behind in a silver clasp set with onyx.

Ironically, it was the struggle to retell that New Year's children's ball for her baby sister that she remembers as the first impetus to her lifelong cultivation of the art of observation. One of the Order's most discreet Watchers of the First War was born in the crucible of her baby sister's obsession with the equally babyish Malfoy heir.

She and Arthur Weasley had had that conversation one unsettlingly silent night during the First War, how they became Watchers. For Arthur, it was born of boredom and the desire to know what would happen next.

So those sunbursts are the biscuits that she'll prepare for her sister, in honor of the first Yule of their tentative reconciliation, and the last one that Cissy will celebrate in freedom.

***

It is not until the week before Christmas that Andromeda gets her visit to the Manor. That's the expedited time, given that she is a close personal friend of the Minister, and the request was routed through him. In preparation for the visit, she is several days in the kitchen preparing the ginger biscuits, as well as other dainties traditional for Yule visits. She knows that her sister no longer has a staff of house elves—well, really all they had was the one, who was liberated through Harry's efforts and later saved them when they were prisoners at the Manor. Little as Andromeda actually knows of these matters, apparently the creatures observe debts of honor.

Which is more than she can say for her nephew. But that's a sore point, and a matter for her next visit. She's already arranged the visit with Madam Longbottom, but first she has the fraught matter of her visit to her sister and the brother-in-law who has never acknowledged her.

Kingsley has dispatched one of the Aurors to accompany her to the Manor. It's the hapless Dawlish, whose first words to her express his relief that he doesn't have to go with her to Longbottom House. He already had one visit there that was all too memorable. Andromeda gathers from this that he was the unlucky fellow who drew the assignment to arrest Augusta Longbottom during the Thicknesse Ministry. He wasn't given any backup, and the result was a four weeks' stay in St. Mungo's.

Had she been in his shoes, she'd have asked for backup—at least double the customary—but apparently Dawlish, when at Hogwarts, never got the trophy-cleaning detention. She particularly remembers the dueling trophy for the class of 1911, because the name of the reigning champion was spelled out in full (Emily Augusta Sophia Sophonisba Chattox), and that was rather a lot of engraving to clean, Muggle-style at that, not to mention the traditional emblem of the Dueling Society, crossed wands superimposed on the Hogwarts coat of arms.

Yes, she well remembers that detention, because she served it with Ted, and contrary to her expectation, he was a dead failure at Muggle-style cleaning. Which should have served her by way of warning, but who listens when hormones are in full flood? Emily Augusta etcetera and her dueling trophy, and the warm curve of Ted's cheek and nose, she remembers vividly after more than thirty years—and the blush that periodically flared on that half-hidden cheek as he cleaned, because he knew that she was watching him, and knew what that meant.

It was thanks to Bella, who had seen fit to confront them in the hallway and to bait Ted. Andromeda and Ted got caught by a prefect—the insufferable Lucius—when Ted took the bait and hexed Bella, and Andromeda backed him up. Lucius and Bella hadn't _always_ been at odds. They could put aside their differences in the face of a common enemy, especially when that enemy was the middle sister's Muggle-born study partner.

Yes. And now she's going to go see that insufferable bastard.

No, _his_ parents were married, as Lucius had reminded Ted with a smirk the once he lost his temper and deployed that particular epithet.

It's almost noon. The parcels of holiday dainties have been duly inspected by Dawlish; the Floo flares green just as Andromeda is wrapping her cloak about her shoulders. The face of a skinny youth appears in the flames. "We're ready for the visitor, if you've cleared her," he says. It's one of the Aurors at the Manor, Octavian something (she can't for the life of her remember the family name, only Nymphadora's quip about how _that_ Octavian shows no signs of ever turning into an Augustus.)

She gathers her parcels in her arms, and steps into the Floo ahead of Dawlish. "Malfoy Manor," she announces, as the hearths whirl by in the darkness.

She steps out into a room forbidding in its emptiness, with tall windows that look out on the winter ruin of the formal gardens: the drawing room, which she recognizes immediately from Ron's description, the very room in which Hermione was tortured. It's the chandelier overhead that tells her. Someone has re-hung it, though she can see that several of the tiers are missing lustres. On the other hand, there are places in this house and its grounds where far worse has happened; with a shudder, she averts her face from the windows. Somewhere out there are the mass graves, in which Dean Thomas' father, along with other unfortunates, lies interred.

In the gloomy winter light, Octavian looks peaky in his scarlet robes. Diggory, yes, it's another Diggory cousin, the one who told Nymphadora about Lucius buying the brooms for the Slytherin Quiddditch team. He doesn't have the good looks of Amos or Felicitas, she thinks, and then starts as she realizes that he's wearing his hair in a spiky cut that shows a little too orange to be real (and does his complexion no good). Apparently the Tonks haircut isn't a fashion only with the Auror girls but the boys as well.

Dawlish follows her through the Floo a few minutes later.

Diggory nods to Dawlish. "I'll go fetch herself," he says. "I'm assuming it's not himself you're here to see."

Andromeda says, "It's my sister and her husband." There's a flash of sympathy and something else on Octavian Diggory's face, that says he's not sure if he pities her more for being the sister of Narcissa or the sister-in-law of Lucius.

Dawlish says, "We'll go to them." He's been here before, it seems, and knows the way. They walk through the gloomy, darkened rooms. The Manor is a stately home, Jacobean in its original construction, with additions over the centuries. The great dining room, which elicits a shudder from Dawlish, is plainly eighteenth-century renovations overlaid on the old structure. That's where the Dark Lord once held court; she's relieved to pass it by.

At length they arrive in the heart of the realm, a cozy room with its tapestries still on the wall and a lovely little sofa upholstered in red brocade. It's a little warmer in this room, for there's a cheerful fire roaring in the fireplace—a fireplace that she suspects is not connected to the Floo system.

The couple sitting before the fire turn to greet her as she follows Dawlish into the room.

The couple: her sister, with a silvery-rose glow that she last had when she was pregnant, in her last year at Hogwarts, and Lucius, who is bundled in wraps enough to keep one warm in Siberia.

Andromeda recovers her presence of mind and puts her parcels down on the table. "I brought you something you might like," she says.

Dawlish adds that the offerings have been checked for known poisons.

She can't miss the sneer on Lucius' face--_how crude_, says that expression, _if you're going to poison me, I'd expect you to exercise some originality_. She averts her eyes from that face, and then remembers that they are no longer meeting as the family renegade and the respectable philanthropist, but the political reliable and the soon-to-be-condemned war criminal. She looks up to meet those cold grey eyes, and sees immediately that they are not the same that have stared her down in Diagon Alley the last two decades.

There's a persistent twitch in his left eyelid, which droops slightly, and a sort of tremulous quality to the whole sharp-boned mask of his face, as if it were held together only by a constant effort of will. And then she sees the boniness of the knuckles of the hand that holds the trademark sword cane, and the other hand that is carefully hidden in the folds of the cloak draped over his shoulder, but which betrays itself by a constant, apparently uncontrollable tremor.

"In his state of health, it's a death sentence," said Kingsley.

For the first time in twenty years, Lucius Malfoy makes full eye contact with her, inclines his head slightly in a gesture that may as well be a full court bow, and says, "Andromeda."

She echoes his gesture. "Lucius."

He says, "Narcissa tells me that you have been looking after Draco." There's a slight quiver about his mouth, she notices, and it's not entirely voluntary. Spell damage. Cruciatus, she would guess.

He masters himself with a visible effort, and continues, "We have not been on good terms."

_Oh, well spotted_, she thinks, in Ron Weasley's sarcastic voice for some reason. "All the more reason for my gratitude as a father." The left eyelid twitches.

She inclines her head again. "Some of us understand family feeling," she says. It feels radically unsporting to add what she had long imagined saying, _not that you ever admitted me to that company_, so for all those years of fantasizing just this encounter, she keeps silent. The ravaged figure before her isn't the man she wanted to tell off—nor is he anything but a ghost of the man on whom Ginny Weasley wants to avenge her own irreparable damage.

Narcissa smiles, distracting attention (by design) from her husband. She's unwrapping the parcels. "How lovely!" There are the little cakes, and the ginger biscuits in the shape of stylized suns (Molly Weasley's recipe). "You remembered my favorite."

Yes, the very ones that she would steal from the refreshments table at the Ministry balls, and stuff into her pockets to feed to her baby sister at home…

***

The fire crackles in the hearth and Andromeda draws her cloak about her. Cissy has called for tea, and they're sitting to drink it, and surprisingly—for it's been years since they've been so close—Cissy recalls that children's ball, the one where she was too young to attend, and how she had asked Andromeda to describe Lucius…

Andromeda scarcely can remember the little boy with the opalescent robes and shining blond hair, though apparently he lives yet in Cissy's recollection, as she smiles tenderly at Lucius.

Andromeda remembers, oddly enough, the approving look that six-year-old Lucius cast on her for standing so straight in the mazes of the minuet.

And remembers Ted's remark that he's only ever seen that dance in period dramas. Before the French Revolution, he said, before they cut off all their heads. Liberty, equality, fraternity, and the other tosh he used to talk…

Come the revolution, he'd said, your sisters and their husbands will be up against the wall.

He'd had to explain what wall he meant, and she shuddered at the picture. She doesn't know to this day how exactly Ted died. Only that they'd found the remains in a ditch, _much the worse for wear_, is the most Kingsley will say. Even if she'd aspired to Legilimency, she wouldn't have exercised it just then.

Lucius is holding himself very straight, as always, but there's a stuttering chime as his tea cup rattles against the saucer. The tremor in his right hand is very bad, and for the first time she wonders how many times he took Cruciatus during the Dark Lord's occupation of the Manor. She's heard from Harry, of course, the details he glimpsed at the edge of things, through a mind not his. And by way of Madam Longbottom she knows perhaps more than she would want to know about the effects of that particular curse.

The tea sloshes over the lip of the cup, and Cissy reaches over to take it gently out of his hand and set it on the table. The expression on his face hardens to ice, and Andromeda averts her eyes. That's the respect in which his son resembles him: that glacial mask, which might hide all sorts of things, except that Draco has plainly only ever admired it without being able to manage it himself.

Yet ice is transparent, and what she can read through it is shame, a terrible sense of having been caught out in weakness he cannot hide. Whether it's the year in Azkaban or the tender mercies of Bella's Dark Lord, the man is not what he once was.

She doesn't want to pity him, because he had no pity at all for those he tortured. Cissy makes a fuss of the ginger biscuits once more, and asks after Teddy, and Andromeda takes out a packet of pictures and shows them.

"A Metamorphmagus," Cissy says.

Andromeda keeps silent; didn't she say so in her letter? But for Cissy, it's seeing that's believing. She watches in awe as Teddy's face shifts through its kaleidoscope of feature and color. He's aware of others now, and imitates them; there's one where his hair is flaring Weasley-red, shades of carrot, fire and bronze, another where his eyes are blue and wide like Luna's, yet another where they shine amber in a face as dark brown as Dean Thomas'… an eerie look indeed, and she can't place from whom he would have borrowed those eyes like lanterns, until she looks closer and realizes that they're slit-pupilled, like a cat's. Here his hair is a black mane, and his eyes green… like Harry, except his nose is sprinkled with freckles.

"Just like Nymphadora at that age," Andromeda says, and Cissy winces. Yes, and well she might, for she did her part, didn't she? Went along, at a minimum, and she knows from Harry that in the matter of Sirius, it was the two sisters who cooperated, Cissy and Bella, to lure him to his death.

"What's his true face?" Cissy asks. A foolish question, that the ignorant ask about the Metamorphmagus children; but the secret of course is that the constant change is the true face. The original face, the stillness, lies behind the play of the surface. Even in sleep, he's in constant flux.

The young woman Auror, who stands silent in the corner, has a look of pity on her face. Andromeda isn't sure for whom it's meant, until their eyes meet. She's somewhat older than Octavian Diggory, and somewhat less insolent to the captive Malfoys. Diggory makes no secret of his feelings, particularly toward Lucius, and the spiky orange haircut may as well be a black armband. There's the whole cohort of them, the youngsters who graduated into a war, and weren't recruited into the Order. The young woman seems to be in her late twenties, which would put her in the class just ahead of Nymphadora. Yes, of course, it's a small world and this young woman, a Bones cousin by the looks of her, knows who she is… the mother of Tonks.

Cissy is passing the pictures to Lucius and remarking on the resemblance of Teddy to Regulus Black, just a flash of dark hair and pale skin. It's the picture where he's imitating Harry, of course, and Regulus had grey eyes, not green, but she has to agree that the resemblance is striking.

She doesn't miss the moue of disgust on Lucius' face… a flash of the passion that predated his glacial mask, that jealousy for the cousin who was to have been Cissy's betrothed had the marriage contract with the Malfoys not worked out. She's always been amazed by the mutual passion between Cissy and Lucius, from long before the dawn of sexual feeling. Passionate, possessive, exclusive: a bright narrow flame, that illuminates only the tiny circle of family; outside the verge of kin, there are no human beings.

Cissy smiles at the pictures of Teddy, and recalls the picnic sixteen years before… and pats her husband's hand, as if asking forgiveness. Ah, she must have confessed it to him… how recently?

Then there are the pictures of herself and Teddy in the garden at the Burrow, Teddy pulling on the greenery in Molly's neat rows of vegetables, and being gently restrained by Ginny. Lucius is unreadable, of course, but she sees a flicker of something in his eyes as his glance lights on that characteristic red hair.

_Yes, your niece's son is being raised by the hereditary enemy_, she thinks. Not that her sister's husband ever had any interest in what went on in blood traitor circles.

When Arthur had told her about the Muggle-baiting at the Quidditch World Cup, the wretched couple lofted into the air with their baby, she'd thought immediately of Ted's parents, and that poor infant, spun seventy feet above the ground, might have been Ted as a baby…

Not a good sign, not at all, she'd said.

Arthur said, we've a good idea who it was under those cloaks and masks; Malfoy's son was taunting Ron's friend Hermione about what they'd do to her if they caught her.

Andromeda had nodded, and said she had no idea where the Clone had gotten his lack of discretion, for Cissy and Lucius had been successful sneaks since the cradle, whereas their spawn appeared to be openly bragging that his papa was a Death Eater.

That was the year they were contemplating the reconstitution of the Order of the Phoenix, when there were more than a few nostalgic dinners in the back garden at the Tonks house, when Arthur came over for tea, or Augusta Longbottom happened to step into the bookshop for a supply of paperback detective thrillers and mentioned that Andromeda might pay a visit to Longbottom House once Augusta had packed her Neville off to Hogwarts. She hadn't seen the need of that World Cup nonsense—waste of money—so her grandson had been tending his projects in the greenhouse while his schoolmates were dodging Death Eaters at the World Cup encampment. She didn't like the sounds of the things young Weasley had been telling her about the proceedings, though he had been quite sanguine about Mr. Crouch's ability to handle any disorder.

She's shaking her head, watching the two of them looking at the pictures of Teddy, as if they hadn't been plotting his demise less than a year ago… no, to be just, all they'd been plotting, toward the end, was their own survival.

Cissy brings it around to the real agenda with quite admirable straightforwardness.

"The Ministry told us we might visit Draco at Longbottom House for Yule," she says. "It's time we told him… about his sister."

Interesting that she says "we," though Andromeda is fairly sure that it doesn't mean Cissy and Lucius. That impression is confirmed in the next breath.

"I'd been hoping, if you were going to see him, you might prepare the ground," she says.

Andromeda can't suppress a sigh; how very _Cissy_. Ask someone else to do the hard part, because after all, she's the princess who can't be bothered with the dirty work. Or the delicate flower, if names are any guide, even though Andromeda is the princess, yes the practically iconic princess in peril…

Well, names are not destiny, or she wouldn't be asked to be the nursemaid to the dragon. She hopes better for the little one who's yet a suspicion of a curve under her mama's shawl; at least she's hoping that her fate will be better than that of her Greek original.

Of course, as Cissy reminds her, Hypatia Narcissa Lucia is named not for an ill-fated Muggle mathematician and philosopher, but for the thirteenth-century alchemist and Potions mistress Hypatia Malfoy, who attended the University of Paris under a male Glamour and discovered the first three of the twelve uses of dragon's blood.

The daughter's name is a plain concession to her husband's family… when it scarcely matters.

Of course, Andromeda agrees. Of course. Because it gives her an excuse for a visit, and she has rather different matters to discuss with Draco… including the matter of his own survival, if she can't get the property sorted before the trials.

***

**Author's note:** Reviewers have noted the divergence from canon in my estimate of who was in the first Order; some of that is deliberate (our informant is Sirius Black, who may or may not have known all the individuals concerned) and some of it the gravitation of these particular readings of the characters, most notably Molly and Arthur.


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Taking tea with Augusta Longbottom is mildly intimidating, and Andromeda thinks that what makes it so is that they are facing each other across the narrow table. In the St. Mungo's waiting room, those many years ago, they had sat side by side, and there was another problem requiring their attention.

Madam Longbottom looks at her shrewdly and says, "So Kingsley gives me to understand that you're the guardian."

Andromeda is taken aback, since she understood the arrangement to be secret.

"Oh that one cracks on he's clever, but he's a Ravenclaw after all." She smiles, not really a smile at all. "He told you about McConnell." Andromeda hesitates, because of the stories Kingsley told her; there's more afoot here. "I don't like it one bit, this loose talk about Frank Junior and poor Alice. I've never seen a one of _them_ on the closed ward." The smile is distinctly wrathful, and now Andromeda wonders what it was that Augusta Longbottom said to Kingsley. "How many of that lot came to see you when Tonks was killed? Or even sent regrets?" Andromeda winces, not least because Madam Longbottom is honoring the name Nymphadora chose for herself, and because the question's rhetorical. Narcissa's condolence note had been in no danger of being lost in an avalanche of such.

She takes a sip of tea, rather than answer. Madam Longbottom reads that silence accurately.

"Alastor Moody told me about the trouble they gave her when she was in training. A Half-blood with Dark connections, and clumsy besides." She narrows her eyes. "Moody and Shacklebolt were the only ones who thought she was worth anything, early on. _I_ remember that." She adds, "They'd have chucked her out, except Moody liked her spirit. Gumption to spare."

Andromeda says she's a little disquieted by the way her daughter seems to have become a legend.

Madam Longbottom nods. Oh, they like their legends, do wizarding folk; they still invoke Merlin as if he had stepped down off Olympus rather than walking the earth as an ordinary wizard—talented, yes, but now that he's safely dead, their own to do with as they wish. When you're alive, they don't treat you too well—look at Harry's case if you doubt that—but once you're dead, you lose control of the situation; she hasn't heard anyone yet taking the name of Albus Dumbledore in vain, but it's only a matter of time. And that lot in the Auror corps who are up to Merlin knows what, they've got hold of her son and daughter-in-law by way of martyrs, and Andromeda's daughter.

And if _she_ were Andromeda, she'd be making it known how little she approved of that haircut. She doesn't so much mind it on the Defense Association girls as she does on the others, the ones who had nothing to do with the whole business.

Now that the war's over, apparently _everyone_ was in the Order of the Phoenix, and they knew all along that Voldemort was plain Tom Riddle, and they _always_ supported the Boy Who Lived, and they listened to Potterwatch without fail, all last year when things were darker than dark. If you believe _that,_ then it's something of a surprise that they managed to find an Auror willing to try to arrest the grandmother of a Hogwarts rebel.

And she was at the Battle of Hogwarts, unlike _some,_ and there were reinforcements, but it was by no means all of wizarding Britain that showed up. Had that been the case, it would have been rather a shorter business—likewise, if half the stories about the actual participants were true.

Andromeda replies that she wasn't there. Someone had to watch Teddy.

What she won't say in the presence of a veteran of the battle, least of all the redoubtable Augusta: she wishes that at least one of Teddy's parents had stayed behind as well. She remembers Remus' look of terrible resignation, and Nymphadora's feverish good cheer. "Well, mum, I'm off to Hogwarts, and I'll be back—with my shield or on it." And then the wink, in the sparkling whirl of Floo powder and leaping green flames, and she was gone.

Which exit, since the war, has been converted to a blaze of glory, given that they won, but to her it still looks like rashness. And there's nothing she can say about that, or wants to say. There are, after all, necessary sacrifices, and she's by no means the only one to have lost a child; in the last war, Madam Longbottom's own loss was even more senseless.

The silence stretches out in the snowy afternoon, and the gloomy house adds its own layer. Longbottom House doesn't breathe and creak like the Burrow, but maintains a flinty reticence; Andromeda can hear it reserving its judgment about this present generation, as it looks down on the two of them through the eyes of the ancestral portraits in the drawing-room.

At length, Madam Longbottom cuts the walnut cake and offers her a slice. "So you're the guardian," she says. "You've taken on no small charge, my lass. He's trouble, that one." She adds, "And it's not only the resemblance to his fool of a father." What she means, apparently, is Draco's inability to leave well enough alone, even after he's been blindsided by the fates.

***

Andromeda tells Draco, cautiously, that his parents will be visiting him for Yule, by special permission of the Minister for Magic.

He nods, and tells her he's had a letter from his mother to that effect.

Well, she's been asked to tell him that there's news…

He raises an eyebrow. She's not seen a child who can convey such utter insolence with a single tiny movement.

She's not in the mood for it, because that conversation with Madam Longbottom raised some disturbing questions, not least why it is that after her daughter has been made the face of the new story about what happened last year, Kingsley couldn't reinstate her pension. You would think that for a Knight of the Order of Merlin…

Madam Longbottom added that she still has the telegram from the War Office about her first husband, and she still takes it out from time to time to remind herself that very little good comes out of London.

"Well?" he says. "You said there was news."

"Which your mother is going to tell you."

He narrows his eyes. "So you came all this way to tell me that there's news, but you're not going to tell me what."

This is not working out as planned, but of course Cissy's charge was ridiculous. On, then, to the next part of the agenda.

"Then there's the matter of your life debts."

He stands up, knocking the chair over in his haste. "No. I'm not going to have this conversation." He would leave, except that a small, dark, malevolent presence interposes itself between him and the door—Augusta Longbottom's ancient house elf. He sees the elf, starts, fails to stare it down, and then turns back to her. He ignores the overturned chair as if nothing had happened.

He stares at her, with a look that must have intimidated his schoolmates, at least when he was flanked by the hulking sons of his father's thugs. Finally he says, "I don't like you and you don't like me. Why don't you leave?"

"You know, Draco, if it were my choice, that's just what I would do. But I made a promise to your mother." Gods, yes, she's a fool. She made a promise to her sister, who conveniently reconciled with her so that once more she could extract such, and she wonders just how far she can trust Kingsley, who wants her to take charge of this child so that he won't be taken up by his father's followers, or sent to Azkaban… notwithstanding that he's cast Unforgivables, he's being exchanged for Harry.

She has a sudden stab of envy for the Muggle-born, who have _repatriated._ Gone back to the homeland. She has no home except here, and it's feeling less and less like home all the time.

"She worries about you. And you've done foolish, impulsive things. And the least you can do is to acknowledge what you owe, so that the people who are in a position to be merciful might be so inclined." She's surprised that the Fidelius hasn't cut off her voice yet. "You would think there had been enough loss. Don't you want the war to be over?"

He sneers at that.

She thinks about her terms: _yes,_ she wants Nymphadora's pension restored. Why can't that be? And yes, she wants her just share of the Black fortune, and she wants out of the Weasley enclave. She's had enough of other people's family fights; there's enough to be going on with, just among her own, one of whom is the regrettable boy before her.

At length he says, "I didn't notice that the war _was _over. It hasn't been for me." He looks at her. "They killed my friends, and nobody knows who did it. So they say. And they wanted to torture me to death because of Longbottom's parents." He isn't looking at her, so much as at a place in the middle distance behind her head. "And yes, I jeered at him about them when we were at school." A muscle twitches in his jaw. "So I've been paid back for _that,_ too. What else do I have to pay for?"

He looks at her with an arctic sneer. "They're taking everything," he says. "I was at the Manor and they've stripped it. I don't imagine they missed the Gringotts vault, either."

That response reminds her that this is Lucius' son, whose notion of _paying debts_ is quite literally couched in terms of Galleons, and yes, it's been in the Galleon range that he's been operating. The extent of his pocket money while at school, and the loudness of his gloating over those who had less, was mentioned with disfavor by Harry, Ron, and Ginny.

She doesn't know how to begin to explain it, and tries anyway. "I'm not talking about money, Draco. I mean that you ought to at least _say_ something."

"I have," he says.

"To whom, then? Because Harry Potter and Ron Weasley tell me they haven't heard a word."

"Longbottom and Granger." He spits out the names as if expelling something that tastes nasty. "Potter is _insufferable._ And Weasley I don't owe anything."

"He says he saved you from a Death Eater during the battle. Under the invisibility cloak."

"Oh, that was him? Did he also tell you that he hit me in the mouth, then?" He narrows his eyes. "And called me a double-dealing coward into the bargain. What was I supposed to do? I was _unarmed._"

He folds his arms over his chest, in what at first looks like defiance; then she realizes he's hugging himself as if standing in a cold north wind. "All I wanted was to get out alive, and save my parents. And there's no hope of that, is there? We're all going to Azkaban. And you want me to stand in Diagon Alley in my shirt holding a candle and saying how very, very sorry I am about everything. Well, sod _that._"

There's a flash of resemblance, the briefest ghost of Nymphadora's defiance. "Tonks, mum, my name is _Tonks._"

That's gone in a moment, to be replaced by a blank stare and sullen mouth… yes, more than once as a child, she slapped Regulus for putting on that face. She keeps her temper with difficulty.

"He told her she should have left me for dead," he says. "And he told Potter, 'If you get us killed rescuing them, I'll never speak to you again.' He's never liked me."

"And you've done so much to endear yourself, with your jeering about his family."

"For the record, he insulted me first."

"When?"

"On the Hogwarts Express, our first year." Andromeda can't help it; she rolls her eyes.

"You're grown men, both of you, and you're holding on to a schoolboy grudge. You can't leave it alone, can you?" This is plainly getting her nowhere; perhaps it's time to try another tack. "Think about how you'd like to leave this world, then, if you're so convinced this is the end," she says. "Think about how you'd like to be remembered, because what you do in the next three months is what they will remember. And there may be more than yourself to think about."

He's silent for a bit, digesting that.

"You don't like me and I don't like you, but we're stuck with each other for the duration," she says. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"You're not the one going to Azkaban," he says.

_Neither are you,_ she thinks, _at least if Kingsley's telling the truth._

"You might think who it is you'd like to have for an enemy," she says. "And might I remind you that you've had defenders you don't deserve. Even after all you did to them, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom did _not_ leave you for dead, and neither did Harry Potter. And Ron Weasley, to give him credit, didn't refuse, did he?"

He looks down and shakes his head.

She reminds him of the consequences of the Death Eater raid on Hogwarts: Bill Weasley is disfigured and Neville still carries scars. And then there are the ones he hurt along the path to that: Ron Weasley and Katie Bell, both of whom almost died, and Madam Rosmerta… He goes dead white at the last name.

He says that he knows all that, but he had no choice.

She says, "Harry told me the story of what happened in the Room of Hidden Things. He said that you wouldn't leave your friend to burn to death." Draco stares at her, his eyes suddenly much too bright. If she lets on that she sees his tears, he'll never forgive her.

"Use that courage," she says. _Noblesse oblige, _she reminds him; there's the question of good form, and the regrettable fact that his family has acquired a rather substantial reputation for bad form, which he doesn't need to augment.

(Selling out wizarding Britain to a madman might by some stroke of understatement be called _bad form_, but she's not going to quibble about semantics.)

He really is the last of the Malfoys, she says, and as such the bearer of the family honor.

That appears to make the difference; he squares his shoulders and lifts his chin, this time not in defiance but in the posture of a young aristocrat determined to face the executioner with grace.

It just seems a bit unfair that it has to be her, exercising her last ounce of Slytherin eloquence. Well, that's blood ties, and they can't be reasoned away, not even by blasting the miscreants off the family tapestry. Really, that was a stupid waste of effort; none of the favored ended up inheriting the family house or any of its effects. Harry's the heir, the very last person Walburga would have imagined in that place.

Which reminds her once more of her unfinished business with Kingsley.

***

Augusta Longbottom invites her to dine, which invitation she doesn't feel she can refuse. Neville steps through the Floo fifteen minutes before the meal is to be served, and tells his grandmother that Hermione is working late at the Ministry and won't be joining them. He goes upstairs to wash up, for he's been working in the greenhouses.

The table is massive and dark, the fare substantial, and the silence itself a presence. The food materializes out of thin air; it's hospitality in the old style, such as is practiced these days only at Hogwarts. Neville and Draco sit across from each other, as if they both were sons of the house, while Augusta presides at the head of the table. Andromeda notices that Draco is eating with a good appetite; she'll be sure to pass that bit of information on to Cissy.

(As if it's going to matter for very much longer, but she realizes now that writing to her sister is something of a habit. When Cissy is immured in Azkaban, will she still be picking through her daily round for morsels about the garden and the baby, or will those details be too cruel for a perpetual prisoner?)

After the meal, Madam Longbottom inquires of her grandson if he'll be staying the night or returning to Hogwarts. The latter, since he's waiting up for Hermione to come back from the Ministry. The two exchange a look, and Andromeda remembers Kingsley's remarks about Augusta's match-making, before Neville goes into the kitchen to depart.

Draco goes upstairs to read. Madam Longbottom tells her that he's preparing for the NEWTs, and at least is a quiet guest.

Her visit is not finished, because next the firewhiskey decanter is produced, and two glasses poured. Her hostess nods to the fire, and they sit.

"So, tell me, what tales do they tell at the Ministry?"

"On what subject?" Andromeda peers into the heavy glass tumbler; the amber liquid shivers in the firelight. She's not sure she cares for this stuff much any more, after watching Ginny knock it back and behave accordingly…

Madam Longbottom looks straight at her (she has the sense of a weapon sheathed, but in readiness), and tells her that Tonks is not the only one being spun into myth, but some are getting the treatment well before they're dead. And, as they say, where there's brass there's muck.

Andromeda still isn't quite sure what she means.

Madam Longbottom takes a considering sip of her firewhiskey, and smiles slightly as her face flushes in the firelight. Then she puts it plainly: it's an open secret that there isn't budget to cover the post-war expenses of the Ministry. Furthermore, of the designated defendants in the upcoming trials, only Lucius Malfoy has assets worth expropriating, _or so it's said._

A pause, during which she nods to indicate to Andromeda that her drink awaits her, then she continues. Of course they're under a state of emergency, even yet, and of course the list of defendants is secret, but everyone knows who's on it.

So once they've concluded the expropriations justified by the trials, there might be those in the second tier, who might once have been considered loyal except that now there are whispers of treating with foreign powers.

Andromeda stares into her drink.

Madam Longbottom says that she's already heard some bits of it, so really this is more in the spirit of confirmation. She called in some favors during the late war to keep _her people_ from harm, and yes she'll admit that she is personally acquainted with someone who knows O'Halloran's second cousin twice removed. Two-thirds of the staff of Chattox & Device _relocated_ to North America during the late unpleasantness, and she can't really fault them for not wanting to return. No one quite trusts the New Ministry not to bring back the Muggle-born Registration Committee.

Which does put her in a rather awkward position, as the custodian of the holdings, since they're already well on the way to losing the durable goods markets of the Continent, thanks to the embargo. And she rather suspects the Ministry of eyeing the Floo Powder concession, which would provide them with healthy cash flow.

Andromeda takes a sip of the firewhiskey, and it's every bit as incandescent as she remembers: the simultaneous flare of heat in the sinuses and the burn in the belly. Bracing, some call it. "So you're asking me what they have been saying in the Ministry."

No, Madam Longbottom corrects, she's asking now what the _Minister_ has been saying. Because for all it's said that the Minister is not the Ministry, the incumbent of that office does have considerable powers, especially in a state of emergency.

"They're talking about the resistance in the north, and how successful it was."

Madam Longbottom says there was not much to it, beyond the recommendations given by the Order: to protect their Muggle neighbors to the greatest extent possible. There was one open action shortly after the fall of the Ministry, at the local pub. She and one of their wizarding neighbors did get the Muggles out before the Death Eaters destroyed the place.

And Neville didn't disgrace himself, either, she adds as an afterthought. Andromeda isn't sure if that translates as "unexpected competence" or "conspicuous bravery."

The key was that they didn't Obliviate everyone afterward, so their neighbors did have a notion of what it was they were dealing with, and they came up with some clever dodges for communicating. Muggles aren't stupid, after all.

The rest of the campaign is best characterized as evasive maneuvers, with very occasional counterattacks.

So, yes, they're guilty on all charges of violating the Statute of Secrecy, and in doing so quite a few lives were saved. Muggles, of course, but they're supposed to count the same as witches and wizards under the New Ministry.

In any case, the Statute of Secrecy is a dead letter, which Madam Longbottom suspects Kingsley already knows. Additionally, Andromeda might convey to him, if they chance to meet, that while it's traditional to ascribe all innovations to the master of the workshop, the reality of multiple authorship is best kept in mind by those who might wish to shut down the workshop by removing the master.

That said, Augusta Longbottom takes a long, considering sip of firewhiskey; the flaring firelight, her heightened color and the obsidian sparkle of her eyes give a flash of the long-ago girl who won that dueling trophy. There's a glimpse, as well, of someone else; it's the darkness of the eyes, of course, though their knowingness is half a century more refined than that of Andromeda's late sister.

Except, of course, that Bellatrix was mad even before she went to Azkaban, and Madam Longbottom is most emphatically sane, in the shrewd, flinty way of the North.

***

**Author's notes:**

"…stand in Diagon Alley in my shirt holding a candle and saying how very, very sorry I am about everything": Draco is referring to a medieval ritual of public repentance, which antedates the Statute of Secrecy and therefore is part of the common heritage of Muggles and wizards.


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

***

Andromeda continues to stare into the fire, tilting the untouched remains of her firewhiskey so that it catches the light. Across from her, Augusta Longbottom watches with her dark sibyl's eyes.

"You trusted Kingsley," Madam Longbottom says at length.

She looks up. "I trusted a lot of people," she says. "It was wartime. We were on the same side."

"The post-war isn't what you expected."

"No." She looks at the fire, then at the red-gold light swirling inside the heavy glass tumbler. She raises it to her lips and takes a swig of the drink in the fashion she learned from her older sister, that guarantees it will go to your head as fast as possible. The blow hits her in the sinuses, belly and head all at once. The room is a great deal warmer, the edges softer, and her own disposition bolder and yet oddly detached at the same time. Yes, that's why so many like this drink: Ginny Weasley for one. It takes you to the high place above time where you're not helpless, but a wise and amused observer.

Augusta Longbottom terrifies her, yet for some reason she feels utterly safe—safe to consciously _dose_ herself, while a sardonic voice in her head that partakes of Tonks at her most irreverent tells her that what she's taking on is _chemical courage._ Safe to stare into the fire, while she rolls around on her tongue what she's going to say about how the post-war is different from what she expected.

"Well, for one, I didn't expect there would be a post-war, because I wasn't sure that there was going to _be_ a war. I thought we'd gone down without a fight." She's really not sure it's a good idea, but she keeps talking. "I didn't think I would lose _everyone._ Ted, and Nymphadora, and Remus…"

If she doesn't take another drink, the tears are going to burn their way from her prickling sinuses into her eyes and she doesn't want to weep now, because she hasn't, really, since that night in Molly's kitchen with Charlie Weasley. This time she isn't ladylike at all about it—she isn't a Pureblood princess but a veteran, a survivor—so with no thought of discretion she knocks it back, throat open….

… yes, just as Ginny Weasley does. That's how she was drinking at Harry's birthday party. That's how she's been drinking all along. And when it hasn't been firewhiskey, it's been tea laced with one Potion or another, Dreamless Sleep or calming draughts.

"I didn't think I'd be living in a place where I trust no one. I didn't think I'd find myself without occupation and without money." She curls her hand around the tumbler. "I'd stopped expecting that anyone would provide for me. We did make a go of the shop, until the Death Eaters…" this she can't say aloud. No, she'd never expected that they'd smash it to pieces and burn it…

Madam Longbottom, no, Augusta, is looking at her with that steady dark gaze, and if she's not mistaken, the anticipation of what she'll say next.

"I didn't expect I'd have to talk to Cissy's idiot son. I can't talk to him, or he doesn't listen. He's as stubborn as Nymphadora was…" By now, the liquor has gone to her head, and above history and mortal things, the observer lists out the items of the matter, and she recites them to the dark, listening presence across from her at the fireside. "I made a hash of it with Nymphadora. All that maneuvering after marriage contracts, and she had no intentions of marrying. Not as we do in our world. She fancied girls, can you imagine? Everyone knew it but me." She leans forward and lifts the glass to knock back the last shining crescent of liquid in the bottom of the tilted glass.

Augusta reaches across the gap between them and takes the tumbler out of her clawed hand. She relinquishes it with a sense of wonder; Augusta's hand is warm and very strong. She would never dream of resisting that strength…

"And _someone_ may have dosed her with Amortentia. Charlie suggested it, when he was here. I didn't want to think…" She's standing at the edge of the precipice now, about to say aloud what she's avoided these last months. "I can't live there any more. They're on the edge of war as it is. It's the money, though, and Ted's house isn't safe… not with Dementors on the loose. No. I didn't expect that, either. Not Dementors and werewolf packs."

Andromeda feels the darkness pressing against her eyes when she closes them momentarily and the velvet pit of sleep entices. "Cissy is going to Azkaban, and Lucius… there's not a lot left of Lucius. I thought I hated that man, and all I can feel now is pity." The observer is shocked, because Fidelius doesn't close her throat. "Lucius will be dead in a year, mark my words. And Cissy's son will be …" and then it _does_ close her throat, against the thought that Cissy's son will be her charge thereafter.

"That's not water, lass," Augusta says . "Though some reckon it medicine…"

Andromeda looks up at her hostess with a smile that she knows does not sit quite straight in her face. "A bitter draught, all of it. Tonks told me that I'd made a mess of it here, because Neville overheard us talking about the marriage contract, and heard her refusing, and took it all very personally." She says, "I don't know how it's done in the Muggle world, but Tonks kept telling me that I wasn't doing it right. She expected something different…"

She realizes that she's been calling her daughter by her chosen name… well, she was of age, wasn't she, and certainly had earned the right to her own name. "I'm not a proper Pureblood and I can't manage being a Muggle. I don't know how the Muggle-borns do it."

Augusta says, "Badly. Making mistakes all the way. In fear and trembling, just like the rest of us."

Andromeda takes a deep breath, and says, "Kingsley said he'd help me get a piece of the Black family money. Except how much of it is left? And a good piece of it already went to pay the reparations to the Goblins." She adds, "I don't know what the terms of that are—I don't think anyone does—but they're still paying it off." She puts her head in her hands because suddenly she feels very unwell. "The Ministry is paying a salary to Hermione Granger and she works for them, and I don't know what would happen if she were to leave… to disappear, say…" She knows that Hermione has to be thinking about that because she and Percy have been talking, and Percy was the one who gave that figure—thirty percent of adult Muggle-born witches and wizards have repatriated. No, she doesn't want to think about what would happen if Hermione reneged on it… well, it would probably be worth her life to do that.

Augusta says, "She hasn't been treated well, this side of the border."

"No," Andromeda says. "She was a fugitive most of last year, and then she was tortured by my sister, and then there was the battle, and she won't be given a chance to retrieve her parents until after the trials." She feels quite sick now, and wishes she hadn't drunk the stuff quite so fast.

Augusta rises, crosses the room out of her line of sight, returns with a flask. "Sobriety Potion," she says. Andromeda takes it and drinks…

… and the agreeable fuzziness disappears, along with the swooning dizziness; her eyes are clear and everything's cold and very much in focus. If one had a taste for icy truth, this could become an addiction as well: a swift dose of the cold light of day. That's a rare taste, though, so the apothecaries sell the stuff or its constituents and don't worry overmuch about the danger to the public.

Augusta says, "It won't do, lass. You need a clear head." Andromeda nods, like a child caught out in an indiscretion. When the sensible ones go off the rails, they do it with a vengeance.

Augusta says, "You need an occupation, and money, and a place to live." Andromeda nods. Augusta knows quite a bit about her situation, it turns out, including the work that she does with the Remus Lupin Foundation.

No, she isn't being paid for that. It didn't occur to her to ask for pay; her position is honorary. Though she does admit that she's doing the accounts, and helping with the planning of meetings, and…

… and she has no doubt that Justin would pay her if she asked, but it hasn't occurred to her to ask.

Augusta suggests that the Foundation ought to take a look at the questions on their agenda, because the matter of Goblin relations troubles her, and she's heard about the draft report on status of sentient magical beings, the one that Hermione is writing. "She asks a lot of questions, does our Hermione. That's the use of Muggle-born; they ask questions. It would serve all of our interests to get things sorted with the Goblins."

The Goblins' demands are of long standing, and everyone knows what they are: they want access to wands, and to the wand-maker's craft; they want the return of Goblin-made artifacts whose original commissioners have died; they want a change in the law of property so that an artifact commissioned by a witch or wizard reverts to the Goblin craftsman upon the client's death; they want full rights as members of the wizarding world. Not difficult to understand at all. It's covered in History of Magic…

… yes, and Augusta remembers Professor Binns, who was nearly as dull in life as in his spectral afterlife, whose soporific cadences gently intoned, "Pay no attention to these matters; it doesn't concern you." Except it very much concerns all of them, and it gives Andromeda yet another pang of doubt: did Bill Weasley act in bad faith in conveying that news?

She doesn't want to think badly of Bill, who's after all helped her to find something useful in the post-war… She's growing up, though (strange to think this when she's poised between her fortieth and fiftieth year), because she says it aloud. "So do you think Bill was doing the Goblins' bidding, or looking out for his family?" She remembers that he alluded to his family's moral debt to Hermione, but would not reveal the details.

Augusta replies that the two aren't mutually exclusive, and the thing to remember is how very suspicious the Goblins are of wizarding folk these days. In their eyes there's not a lot to choose between Kingsley Shacklebolt and Pius Thicknesse; the burden of proof is on the Minister to show that he's not more of the same. Given the duration of the previous offenses, the demonstration of contrition will be a long one.

"And we're being held ransom meanwhile," Andromeda says.

"They would call it getting their own back. And it's Hermione paying the debt." Augusta adds that she's seen the bill of particulars, and it will be a long time before it's redeemed.

Meanwhile, a trade of political concessions for debt might be managed…

"But that would mean they could hold us ransom any time they decided they wanted something more. And if they had wands, they could extract it by force." She realizes that she's repeated the truism she heard over and over in her childhood. Those are her father's words and her mother's, the words repeated in the citadel of the House of Black whenever the subject of the Goblin bankers came up.

"And what did your Dark Lord do?"

Andromeda bridles at that. "He wasn't _my_ Dark Lord."

Augusta, unruffled, says she was speaking generally; he was the Dark Lord of the Pureblood aristocracy, that part of it that never gave an inch: proud and bloody-minded, just as she said, clinging to tradition even if it killed them.

(Which in the case of Andromeda's brother-in-law, it very nearly did.)

Perhaps it's time to bring _that_ tradition to a close, Augusta says. A wand is only a weapon in the hands of an enemy; there's no requirement that wizarding folk stand at daggers drawn with the Goblins. They need each other; they're both of _this_ world. The problem with the isolationists is that they don't know the other side of the border, don't realize how very different it is in the non-magical world. There are places all but bereft of their old magic… she might, as an exercise, take a stroll in the City of London and watch the priests of Mammon rushing about in their myriads.

Andromeda looks at Augusta, softened in the red-gold light of the fire, her iron-grey hair sunk to black, the lines in her face hidden in the flickering illumination. The dark eyes look back at her, those eyes that remind her of her sister's. Bella, when Bella was sane—or at least not completely mad. Bella before she met the Dark Lord, Bella before the First War, before Azkaban, before… when she was only Andromeda's sister.

It's the resemblance, she knows, for otherwise she never would have addressed Augusta Longbottom as if she were a contemporary. "So what is your interest in it, then?" she asks. "Kingsley said we'd sort it all after the trials. They'll expropriate Lucius, and…"

Augusta smiles and it's not a smile at all, for it only makes the sharpness of her face more dire. "Likely that will do them no good," she says. "I've had a wager on the Malfoys, these fifty years." Andromeda does not like the looks of that smile, and likes even less the way it evolves into something sardonic as a death's-head. "Algy won't like it, but he's never won a bet from me… where there's brass, there's muck, but with that one there's naught but muck."

"You mean …" Andromeda doesn't even want to think about what she means, because it's all too clear. Augusta's bet with her cousin is that Lucius has been bluffing, and Abraxas before him, and they're about to be found out by the Ministry, on a spectacular scale…in which case there's no question of redeeming Hermione, because there's nothing with which to pay the debt.

She gathers herself, and asks the question again, "So what is your interest in all this?" Because it's plain that Augusta has an interest. "The story at the Ministry is that you've plans for Hermione."

Augusta nods. "Kingsley," she says. Andromeda nods. "He'd be right. The lad's no fool."

"So a marriage contract, or an apprenticeship—or likely both."

Augusta says, "If I had to choose—the apprenticeship." She addes that if Kingsley's tale about the guerrilla chieftain of the North were true, then she'd be storming the Ministry just now. The Minister can sleep easy, though, given he doesn't believe his own tales. But she _will_ have justice done for Hermione, not least for the sake of ordinary gratitude.

The war, then?

No, Augusta replies, something older than that, and more personal; Hermione was the only one who protected Neville when he was at Hogwarts. What she reads between the lines in her grandson's few words on the matter is that he reckons her the author of what confidence he has… which Augusta herself rates as considerable, given that he told her quite plainly he had no plans of being an Auror. Given what's going on in the Ministry, that's looking like the better part of wisdom.

She's been after him to declare himself, though likely he never will. That's his affair, of course, and he's young yet, probably both of them too young to think about such a thing. But she won't see that sort of talent go to waste in the Ministry. She's seen the report in draft, and it's brilliant; Hermione has even had a guess at the nature of Ministry's binding with the Dementors, not a pretty subject and certainly not one raised even in Dark circles.

She has the outsider's eye, Augusta says, what the Pureblood isolationists ignore at their peril; they've no notion of its power, which explains how easily they were played by another outsider, one Tom Riddle.

***

She has an anxious letter from Cissy the next morning, of course, asking how the interview with Draco went, and she has to be brutally honest and say that he didn't seem particularly receptive to any of it. How it's going to go when she's his guardian, she doesn't know. Of course, by then it will be the full power of the Wizengamot telling him what he must or may not do, but she much doubts that it will be very much easier.

She's caught up in the preparations for Christmas, that Muggle version of Yule, and in the heart of winter the Burrow takes on its most enchanting face. The snow outside, with its icy blue shadows in sunlight and its sullen glow under overcast, more nearly accords with her mood. Augusta Longbottom has a well-established reputation, and it is neither as a liar nor a fool that she's known; Augusta's words have cast a long chill shadow of doubt on the things Andromeda long has taken for granted.

No, she has not taken them for granted so much as she has ignored them, because everyday life and her own grief demanded so much, because it was more comfortable to stay put than to move under the influence of her doubts, because it is safer to stay here rather than to seek shelter elsewhere.

On Christmas Eve, she walks into the kitchen as Molly Weasley is finishing a Floo call, a Christmas Day invitation to someone. She gets up, dusts off her knees, and says, "Well, that will be one more for dinner tomorrow." The table's already full, but the custom at the Burrow is that another place always can be made. Luna's father Xenophilius is already staying in one of the upstairs rooms; he's sharing Percy's monkish room, and the younger boys—Harry and Ron and Dean—are still sleeping in the same room. Luna and Ginny share a room, though there's a strained atmosphere there, at least on Ginny's part, because apparently Ginny has found out that Luna was among the committee that approached Harry about her drinking and violent talk.

Andromeda sets the tea kettle to boiling, and asks who's coming. She already knows about Bill and Fleur; Charlie, as usual, is in Romania, out of reach of the Floo and under the Central European travel restrictions.

The guest is Hermione. Andromeda finds this puzzling, because as far as she can tell, Hermione hasn't set foot in the Burrow since early October, that morning that she stopped in before breakfast to distribute the revision schedules for the NEWTs.

Molly says that it's important to make a gesture, especially at this time of year, and as far as she knows Hermione has no invitations for the holidays. There's something distracted in her manner; she doesn't stay in the kitchen for tea, as had been their custom, but goes to the next room, where Harry and Ginny are watching Teddy.

Teddy's up and about walking now, and he's fully as curious and venturesome as Nymphadora was at the same age. It haunts her, of course, how bad a job she'd made of that, now that it's too late. As she's drinking her tea, the Floo flares green and Dean steps through, followed by Luna; they've come from London, from the public Floo at the Leaky Cauldron; they've spent the morning at Dean's mother's.

Dean frowns when Andromeda mentions that Hermione is coming to Christmas dinner. He didn't think he'd ever see her back there, not after what happened in October.

What _had_ happened in October?

Well, Harry and Ron have been tight-lipped about it, but Hermione had spoken with them out in the garden, and there followed a rather spectacular piece of wild magic.

Weather-working, Luna says. But we got it sorted out.

Andromeda knows from History of Magic that there hasn't been an instance of weather-working in over fifty years, but Dean assures her that it was the real thing. A quite uncharacteristic storm cloud had taken shape over Ottery St. Catchpole. Luna and Arthur had seen to that, and afterward, there was a very tense moment in the kitchen between Molly and Hermione, in which the latter said something that made Molly go white.

It isn't Dean but Luna who remembers the words. Molly had put out tea and biscuits, and Hermione had looked at it and asked if that were the spread she had put out for Tonks. And then she stepped through the Floo to Hogwarts and hasn't been to the Burrow since.

Andromeda sits down, rather abruptly.

And there had been some conversation about Hermione's intentions with respect to Ron, Luna adds, which she found puzzling because everyone knew that Hermione and Ron were no longer girlfriend and boyfriend.

Under those circumstances, the reason behind Molly's invitation is obscure at best.


	26. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

Christmas morning, Andromeda wakes well before dawn. It was a nightmare that woke her… and whatever it was, she can't remember, only that some malicious voice was telling her that she'd missed the whole thing, that they'd gone on doing it under her very nose, and she'd missed it until it was too late …

Teddy is still slumbering under his baby quilt, his fist shoved in his mouth. His other arm and his legs are thrown wide like a starfish; he sleeps just as Ted did, sprawled on his back and utterly vulnerable to the currents of the night. She's tempted to gather him up in her arms, but that would wake him, and she finds that the dark of the night suits her purposes.

Well, the dark of the pre-dawn; it's hours before the sun will show.

What had Charlie said? He'd left the country to avoid his mother's match-making. And there was no mistaking that it wasn't a joke when he said it. People did joke about love potions; she and her House-mates had giggled over that lesson in Potions, in spite of Professor Slughorn's remonstrances.

They'd paid for that, the witches and wizards of Slytherin House, because he'd called a meeting in the common room that evening to discuss the matter further…

He didn't want to hear jokes about Amortentia after he'd enumerated quite plainly the effects of that Potion. He wanted them to know that it produced not only obsession but recklessness; like the madness of Felix Felicis, it impaired the judgment in all respects… to give someone to drink of that seductive stuff was to send them to hell. At very least, the daughters and sons of Salazar should have the _cunning _and _good sense_ to leave well enough alone; leave blatant foolhardiness to the Gryffindors.

Nothing like having your Potions Master as Head of House to be quite clear on the matter. He knew what sort of mischief Pureblood boys and girls were likely to be getting up to, and cut it off most unceremoniously.

She supposes that Muggles joke the same way about addictive drugs or guns or nuclear weapons—the way that teenaged witches and wizards joke about love potions.

In this first winter of the post-war she's heard the new Celestina Warbeck song, rather grimmer than her usual fare, _The Ballad of Tom Riddle._ On the face of it, another cautionary tale about crossing the border, but there's something more there: the very powerful message that love potions are nothing to joke about.

Augusta Longbottom, no, Emily Augusta Sophia Sophonisba Chattox, had crossed the border, but the story has it that the other party to that went into it with his eyes wide open. He _knew_ that he was being courted by a witch, and he married her with wits un-addled by Amortentia or anything of the sort.

It's said that she saw him off on the train to the Great War with tears in her eyes, but did not deter him from his perceived duty by any wiles, magical or otherwise. Of course, that was in Lancashire in the teens of the century, and as everyone knows, the north is different.

He never returned. Since the first day of the Battle of the Somme, _missing in action _along with half of his regiment. Somewhere on that field of honor so-called, he lies in unwaking sleep these eighty years and more.

Maybe he's lifting a glass of ale in the English division of Valhalla with Andromeda's daughter and son-in-law and the other veterans of the most recent war to end all wars. If the battle lines are forgotten in the warriors' paradise, then maybe her older sister is there as well… though Firewhiskey bolted from a Sevres teacup was more in her style.

Andromeda is not going to be sleeping any time soon, and at this hour, the bath is unoccupied and Teddy is sleeping soundly. She indulges herself in a leisurely wash, with hot water yet. When she returns, Teddy is still asleep.

Molly, who may have tampered with Nymphadora—with _Tonks,_ she corrects herself, with a nod to the dead—Molly has invited Hermione to Christmas dinner at the Burrow.

No, she doesn't want to think about it, but there's little choice. _Hermione said something that made Molly go dead white._

It isn't so much what she said—anyone could have said that, and it could have meant absolutely nothing—but it's Molly's reaction that makes it significant.

She'd been afraid to press, of course, but Luna provided the rest of it without having to be asked.

Hermione had gone on to say, "I know her mother wouldn't say anything about it, because you're offering her sanctuary for the duration, but so help me God, if I hear one word…" Left it hanging in the air like the threat it was, and then …?

"And then I took her to Spell Damage at St. Mungo's," Luna said.

And Arthur, apparently, had been in the room when she said that.

There's little for her to do; the house is already decked out for the holiday. If she had some household task to do, even the accounts for the Remus Lupin Foundation… but those are done, everything is done; the admirable thing about a houseful of adults or near-adults is that many hands make light work. Molly has found herself no longer herding children but commanding a battalion; the garden is de-gnomed (George with his usual ferocious grin having body-bound and gilded one of them by way of Christmas angel, which Andromeda gathers is a tradition of sorts but which she personally finds disturbing), the house impeccably clean enough to receive not only the Minister for Magic but any number of foreign dignitaries; the preparations for dinner, all that can be done in advance, are well completed, several dozens of the sunburst biscuits baked and scenting the air in the kitchen with a breath of the spice isles.

In spite of herself, or maybe not, she found herself watching Molly with a sharp eye. Nothing went into any of the food—thus far. She racks her brain: why and whence this invitation? Ron is plainly spoken for; she wouldn't care to step between Lavender Brown and anything she set her heart on. Something tells her, from the covert glances Ron and Lavender exchange, that up the road will be more than one epic battle of the in-laws.

From Bill's hints, she knows that Fleur had no easy time of it. They'd already been dating for a year when they got engaged, in the wake of the Death Eater raid on Hogwarts and Bill's disfigurement. What had he said? There were girls she kept shoving at him, as if to say, "Anyone but her." Anyone, as it happens, but the one he wanted. And Tonks was one of them.

That was the year of estrangement, yes, the year that Tonks was doing patrols at Hogwarts in the wake of the assassination of Amelia Bones—the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement killed in her own home in broad daylight, and the Order stalwart Emmeline Vance likewise—and she and Tonks had not been speaking.

"Tonks, mum, my name is _Tonks_."

That was the year Tonks spent more time in Molly Weasley's kitchen than her own, not that the kitchen of Tonks' flat was anyplace you'd like to spend time… she had all of her father's inclination to domestic tasks, which is to say, none. "A right old slob," Ted called himself, ruefully and without defiance, and she reckoned him right after all these years (and it wasn't as if he were lazy, he just didn't _see_ the mess). It had been maddening to see the same traits in her daughter. What had she expected, a Pureblood princess on the old model, a Cissy or a Bella? Even if she had been at odds with both of them, at least they were types she recognized. Tonks was something new in the world, or at least new in hers.

Ted had taken his daughter in stride, as he took everything in stride: the Muggle togs and the lipstick traces, the clumsiness and the bursts of wild magic, the extraordinary, raw, embodied talent that she was born with. He didn't know that there had been no Metamorphmagus in the Black line for five centuries; all magic was the same to him, a wonder that contradicted everything he'd learned up to the age of eleven.

If only she'd been able to manage the same insouciance …

It doesn't matter now. If she's failed in her duties to the dead, at least let her do right by the living.

So she watches Molly Weasley, to be sure of the ingredients of every dish that's to be served at Christmas dinner.

It isn't until just before dinner that Hermione steps through the Floo. The first thing that Andromeda notices is how pale she is: but perhaps that's the dark clothes, yes, she's wearing that tunic that was Andromeda's present to Tonks on her Auror graduation, and which fails to disturb her when worn by Hermione…

…because her daughter never wore it more than once or twice, because it wasn't hers, really, or her style. Now if Hermione had stepped into Molly's kichen wearing striped tights and a too-short skirt and those black industrial shoes, that would be different. Or the black leather jacket with the shiny buckles and zippers, that was a twin to the one that Sirius wore…

No, Hermione is wearing that utterly elegant, starkly formal garment, with the black jeans she wore at Harry's birthday party, and she's wearing them like armor. She's reluctant to relinquish her cloak, even though it's warm in the kitchen.

Percy immediately takes her arm, and they repair to the other room.

Andromeda watches Molly, whose eyes slide past her like a water-bug skating over a summer pond. Something's afoot, of course; those eyes are following Percy, or Hermione—or maybe both of them.

Andromeda steps a little closer to the doorway, while still watching Molly, who isn't quite aware of being observed. Percy and Hermione are deep in a technical conversation; she recognizes the tone for it's just like the talk between Sirius and Ted, when they were working on the flying motorbike. There's an excited rise and fall of voices, but no emotion—or rather, the considerable passion is focused not on each other but on the matter at hand.

Molly hears it too, and from the look on her face it's clear that it's nothing she understands or approves.

George comes through with an armload of firewood and bumps against Percy, not quite accidentally, and Percy spills his drink, half on the floor and half on Hermione's jeans. She pulls out her wand and Vanishes it before Percy has half opened his mouth to apologize.

The undercurrents in this house are nearly unbearable; how could she have missed that George hates his brother with an undying passion; if he could resurrect his twin by killing Percy, he'd have the sacrificial knife out and cut his throat right there in Molly's front room.

How did she fail to miss this before?

Wishful thinking. She watches Arthur, who's the invisible man. As long as she's known him, he's had a gift for fading quietly into the background. A minor bureaucrat who's come to rest in his dream job, playing about with Muggle trash as Molly puts it… well, under the livid lightning glare of her realization that she _must_ leave this house, things look rather different.

If it's a matter of a fight with Molly, she cannot depend on Arthur. Any other fight, with any other antagonist, and she can depend on him to the last, but this one…

Arthur smiles at Molly, a distant abstracted smile, the sort of smile that implies rumpled clothes and a hand run absently through thinning hair that's already standing on end. What is it about Arthur Weasley that makes it almost impossible to focus on him? Notice-me-not, only in his case it seems to be wired into his way of being, rather than being put on by way of glamour.

_Wired._ A Muggle metaphor. Yes, she was married to Ted for rather a long time, wasn't she?

Molly and Arthur are indissolubly married, as no one else she knows is married… well, perhaps with the exception of Cissy and Lucius. And having put them into the same thought, it seems that there might be something sinister in that close a bond. She and Ted were at odds more often than not, and half of the fights were about the difference of worlds. Muggle-born is not Pureblood, and vice versa.

Molly and Arthur, like Cissy and Lucius, are both Purebloods.

Her daughter was neither one nor the other, but a dweller between the worlds. Ted took that for granted. Muggle-born is halfway to Half-blood, after all. You cross over at age eleven, and never go back, but you're always glancing over your shoulder.

Hermione and Percy are talking in low voices about something, Ministry shop talk no doubt, and Andromeda remembers the stack of parchment on Kingsley's desk. How long have these two been conspiring behind everyone's back?

Hermione is thinner than she remembers (of course, she has that thought every time she sees her), with a bruised look under her eyes. Not sleeping, or not sleeping well, and yet she's arguing with Percy, sweeping one hand to demonstrate… "They'll have us all if we're not careful," she says. There's an utter self-possession in that gesture, that says she knows what she is, and doesn't even dare you to say something about it; behind that lies the solidity of everything she's done. She probably isn't even aware she has a reputation as a rising Power. A curious mirror image of her nephew's arrogance, which is based on absolutely nothing: a fortune that's about to be a thing of the past if it ever were more than a bluff, a name that's disgraced past saving, a bloodline that has come to a dreadful end.

Andromeda watches Molly with a sharper eye than before; what is the agenda behind that invitation? Molly seems to be avoiding Hermione, not at all bringing her to the fore as if she were an honored guest.

Then she finds herself drawn into conversation with Xeno Lovegood, who's also watching Hermione from his corner. His daughter brings him tea and things to eat, and then keeps him in view from the next room even as she goes to assist Harry and Ginny in amusing Teddy. It's as if she's afraid that he will disappear if she doesn't watch him. Well, that's not unreasonable; disappearance was a fact of life under the Thicknesse Ministry.

Xeno tells her that the presses for the _Quibbler_ were destroyed in the collapse of the house, and his own Gringotts vault much depleted by the fines the Ministry levied on him both under the Thicknesse Ministry and the New Ministry. Lovegood the elder has a name for his love of eccentric conspiracy theories, but Andromeda doesn't think he's too far afield to be suspecting the _Prophet, _especially given the ceaseless efforts of Rita Skeeter to discredit the radical-reformist wing of the New Ministry while making out that the _Daily Prophet_ stands, as it always did, for the health, prosperity and greater good of wizarding Britain.

Two stints in Azkaban under two different Ministries: that's quite a lot to bear, and Andromeda is quite sure that she wouldn't be as cheerfully philosophical about it as Xeno is. The grounds for his good cheer are twofold: first, that his daughter is safe and sound, and every day looking more like her mother; second, that his late wife's family has offered to back him on reviving the _Quibbler_ and even extending it to a publishing house.

Andromeda frowns; weren't the presses destroyed?

"Ah yes," Xeno says, "but that's no problem. In-kind contributions, you know." Apparently it's a point of principle with Emily's cousin that the _Prophet_ not continue unopposed, and besides, Chattox & Device Witchgear has considerable inventory that can't be shipped to the Continent or Asia or North America. May as well put it to work at home to profit of a different kind.

Emily's cousin… Xeno's late wife would be Emily Lovegood nee Chattox, daughter of Sophia by her very late marriage to Marcel Delacour (another wartime romance from the Grindelwald War), first cousin to her namesake who now goes by Augusta. Emily was actually born the same year as Frank Longbottom, Jr., her first cousin once removed. Very interesting. Augusta Longbottom might not be conspiring to form a shadow government, but she certainly does have her finger in quite a few pies. Of course, the distinction between conspiracy and family business is really a matter of the angle of view.

Xeno tells her that Luna is doing him proud, revising for the NEWTs, especially Care of Magical Creatures. When the embargo is lifted, he's hoping to mount another Snorkack-hunting expedition to Scandinavia. Luna says that might be managed as a side-trip to the visit of the officers of the Remus Lupin Foundation to the Swedish Institute for Lycanthropy Research.

So, all in all, things are very definitely looking up.

Oh, yes, and Ollivander offered her an apprenticeship as a wand-maker, pending the NEWTs. His little Luna is turning out quite a witch, isn't she? Her mother would be so proud. And he does like that young man with whom Luna's been keeping company—not clear if as beau or bosom friend—but in any case, it does good to bring in new blood.

Andromeda discreetly turns to admire the view of the snowy garden, as Xeno attends to something in his eye, and then takes out his handkerchief and blows his nose rather vigorously.

There's a delighted squeal from the other room. Teddy, of course; she ought to be sure he's not getting in trouble. She excuses herself and goes to the doorway. Teddy is sitting on the floor, looking up at a flight of dragons, which Luna has sketched in the air and then set to doing acrobatics just above his head. Harry and Ginny are looking on; Percy and Hermione are still talking in one of the dimmer corners of the room, ignoring everything else.

Luna smiles at Andromeda, and gives her wand a discreet flick; the dragons shoot up to the ceiling, slide down the corners of the room, and then commence to circle about Teddy, just out of range of his chubby little fingers.

Andromeda is pleased that they're keeping him amused; Luna's charmed drawings are really quite masterful, and they strike the right balance between whimsy and the ferocity of the real; there's no mistaking that those are _dragons,_ but they have an irresistible comic verve that Teddy, to name but one critic, seems to find delightful—to judge from his high-pitched shrieks and laughing face.

Harry is watching, too, with a distracted expression and a sullen set to his face that reminds her of Draco. Her world is overpopulated with moody adolescent boys, of late. She remembers with chagrin that she once envied Molly the task of raising her Charlie—well, Charlie wasn't anywhere near as difficult as Tonks, so she'd thought it was a matter of his being a boy.

No, it was more a matter of the particular boy, and how nearly his behavior corresponded with his family's expectations. He had his father's sunny disposition and his mother's driving ambition, at least while at Hogwarts. Bill and Charlie had carried off nearly all the prizes, a record which Percy completed by taking more OWLs and NEWTs (all with O's) than any Hogwarts student in recent history. She rather pities the twins for having to follow that act, and Ron all the more for being the Weasley of no particular distinction.

Tonks, on the other hand, had raw talent in abundance, but great difficulty in applying it to her studies rather than extra-curricular mischief. It came as a shock to everyone, not least her mother, that she took O's in all of the NEWTs required for qualification as a trainee Auror, and yet more of a shock when Mad-eye Moody took her on as his protégée.

It's the intensity of Ginny's expression, rather than a raised voice, that catches Andromeda's attention.

Ginny is saying to Harry in a low voice, "I don't know why you insisted that mum invite _her._" Harry frowns—no, it's more of a glower (green eyes can look fully as spiteful as grey ones)—and sets his mouth into a hard line.

He says, in a voice so low and expressionless that it's all she can do to _listen_ rather than tune it out as background noise. "I thought you were going to leave off being jealous. There's no reason for it."

"She hasn't talked to you in months."

"And it's Christmas."

"I don't know why that should make any difference." Ginny goes to the sideboard and pours a dollop of something into her tea cup, knocks it back with that swift practiced move. "She's not talking to you, anyway. _Percy's_ monopolizing her."

She pushes the decanter back into the shadows, as Harry sighs and glances sidelong at Hermione. His face is pale and set, and Andromeda isn't sure if the expression is slow-burning anger or pain.

Hermione and Percy are talking about the travel restrictions, the Continental embargo and the state of the wizarding industrial sector. Nothing in that to excite anyone's jealousy, at least with respect to romance.

Harry's jealousy is not sexual or romantic, but the bad feeling of an estranged brother who is being ignored by his sister. She knows that expression; she saw it more than once on the face of her cousin Sirius at family gatherings, and it was usually Cissy and Bella who provoked it, long after he'd declared that he didn't care what a pair of Pureblood princesses said about him.

In this case, it's the Muggle-born swot and the Half-blood hero, but the principle applies all the same. Harry doesn't care what Hermione thinks, but his eyes tell a very different story. His expression is bitter, as if he's thinking of something that makes him terribly sad and angry at the same time, but which pride will not allow him to speak.

There's a whoosh as the Floo flares in the kitchen, and Lavender Brown steps through, assisted in her final steps across the hearth by Xeno Lovegood. "So is Ron about?" she asks.

Harry casts one last glance at the oblivious Hermione, and tells Lavender that he's upstairs. To spare her the climb, he dashes up the stairs. To spare her the climb, or perhaps to avoid the issue with Hermione, whatever it is.

Ginny follows him.

Hermione excuses herself from the conversation and meets Lavender half-way, offers her own arm, and helps Lavender to the chair usually occupied by Arthur. Teddy is still watching the circling dragons, who have been joined by galloping centaurs and creatures that look suspiciously like Thestrals.

Things are very interesting indeed, if Hermione and Lavender are on such good terms.

Ron comes bounding down the stairs, his long legs unexpectedly graceful, and his face alight. He falters a bit when he sees Hermione. There's a pause of tremendous awkwardness, and then Hermione says, "Oh honestly, Ron. It's perfectly all right. I've known for the last two weeks. Congratulations, the both of you. And merry Christmas."

Ron says, "Would you like something to eat?"

Lavender laughs. "Pregnant women don't eat _all_ the time, though I do appreciate the offer. I can wait until dinner."

Hermione says, "I'm making tea. Anyone care for some?" Ron nods, as does Andromeda, and Luna adds rather oversized cups and saucers to the asteroid belt of magical creatures slowly rotating about the bemused Teddy. Lavender says, "Oh, those are excellent. Dean's right; you really do draw quite well."

Luna says that it's a matter of practice. She tilts her head to one side, watching Teddy. And a proper audience, she adds.

Hermione and Percy go into the kitchen to make tea. Interesting, how Percy is following her like a bodyguard. She wonders if he shares Charlie's suspicions.

They're drinking tea in the front room, Ron and Lavender and Hermione and Percy and Luna, as Andromeda rocks Teddy on her lap. His manic joy has given way to crankiness, as the magical drawings slow and fade, and his demanding noises to Luna are met with the reply that it's tea time, and there will be more creatures later.

Teddy twists and thrashes on her lap, screaming his resistance. She recognizes the signs of impending nap time, and puts down her cup and saucer to walk him. Rather sooner than she expected, he relaxes, warm and limp against her shoulder.

She excuses herself and carries him upstairs.

At the turn of the stair, she hears raised voices and pauses. It's Harry and Ginny.

"I don't understand why you had to invite her."

"I wanted to go to Godric's Hollow." A pause, and then he continues, voice thick with suppressed feeling. "We were there last Christmas. She conjured a wreath of Christmas roses for the graves." His voice breaks on the last words, in a hoarse strangled sound. She's never seen Harry cry, but she has the uneasy feeling that this is what she's hearing.

"Well, it's plain she's not talking to you."

"Maybe I deserve it. I haven't exactly been her best friend this last six months." There's a very long pause, and he says, "You don't care what happens to her, do you?"

"You care more about her than you do about me."

"Ginny, if I didn't care…" There's a pause, then the sound of smashing glass. "Ginny, why are you doing this?"

"Drinking, or staying with you?"

"You know what I mean. And you missed the last two appointments with Derwent…"

"I already heard it from Shacklebolt; I don't need to hear it from you."

"I _told_ you not to hang about with McConnell. That revenge talk was no good for anybody. It's not going to bring Fred back. It's not going to resurrect Tonks or Remus or Colin. They're _dead,_ Ginny. They're not coming back, and torturing Draco isn't going to change that. He's already going to Azkaban; isn't that enough for you?"

There's a very long pause and then Ginny says, "You broke up with me _for my own safety. _You never asked me what I thought, and you didn't give me a say in the matter. You still think I'm the pitiful little girl who had to be rescued from the Chamber of Secrets." She says, "You don't know how I _fought_ him, once I knew what he was. No one knows. I'm just the fool of a girl who got tricked into resurrecting Tom Riddle. 'You're not very interesting,' he said. 'Little girls never are.' And then he told me how very clever he'd been to pretend to be interested in my stupid little problems, and how he was going to have what was left of me…" Andromeda hears that low, rasping sound that would be weeping, if it were anyone else. That's the thing they have in common, Harry and Ginny: they're very stoic in public, and when they do weep, it doesn't sound like tears, but blood.

Ginny gasps for air, hiccups a little, and adds, "And then my father told me the same thing, that I was stupid to have truck with something that could think for itself if I didn't know where it kept its brain. 'How many times have I told you…' Well, 'how many times' is none. He was thinking of Bill or Charlie. Not me. Not Ron. We're the afterthoughts. They should have stopped after the twins."

The last words are muffled, as if something's been pressed against her mouth.

"No," Harry says, "you shouldn't say that. If you hadn't been born, I wouldn't be here."

"That's all she cares about, you know. Harry Potter, the prestige son-in-law."

"That's not true. She loves you."

"No, she loves _you._ The son she wishes she'd had. Not me or stupid Ron … she'd trade the lot of us for you. Maybe even throw in perfect Percy to sweeten the deal."

"She killed Bellatrix to defend you."

"Bellatrix ticked her off by talking about Fred. Stupid cow. When mum's on a tear, her aim is _deadly._"

**Author's note:** The drinking style of Bellatrix Black, courtesy of Silver Sailor Ganymede, who traces it to _Druella Black's Guide to Womanhood, _by Dress Without Sleeves. (Highly recommended, with a very nineteenth-century picture of Pureblood high society against turbulent echoes of the Muggle 1960s and 1970s.)

Longbottom and Chattox family history courtesy of A. J. Hall, except for the Lovegood and Delacour connections, which are my invention. Battle of the Somme: A. J. Hall gives the regiment as the Accrington Pals, which sent me on a fascinating internet research journey, including some fascinating photo tours of the battlefields of WWI.

Harry's resemblance to Draco may be more than a matter of a flash of facial expression. In her review to _Four O'Clock in the Morning, _chapter 11 (4/28/2010), TruantPony points out, "Supposedly, based on the genealogy charts drawn up by J.K.R., Harry is actually related to Ginny—third cousins or something. He's even more closely related to Draco than what is generally alluded to in the books (via the Dorea Black and Charlus Potter connection)." I realize belatedly that my mental picture of Harry has actually been rather pointy-faced and sullen…

Weasley family dysfunction: the main lines of the argument from JOdell aka RedHen, with the rest observed from life.


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

* * *

Andromeda puts Teddy in the cot for his nap, carefully face up with his favorite quilt over him; she casts a warming charm and another to warn her if he wakes. She comes downstairs just as Molly is calling everyone for Christmas dinner. Bill and Fleur have arrived, the last-awaited guests, and are dusting themselves off, as Molly smiles as Fleur presents a cut-glass decanter of elf-made wine, her contribution to the feast and apparently a gift from her parents, who had chanced to visit in the narrow interval before the end of the war and the beginning of the travel restrictions.

Meanwhile, there's the question of seating. Arthur is at the head of the table, with Ron his right and Lavender on his left; there's a clear reason for that arrangement. Lavender needs extra room for her right leg, which still does not bend very much at the knee, in spite of months of rehabilitation appointments at St. Mungo's.

"Just like Mad-eye's wooden leg, only it doesn't detach for cleaning," Lavender says, with an expression that really _is_ a smirk, and not just the pull of her facial scars on the corner of her mouth. (If only her sullen little nephew had the excuse that _he couldn't help it because his face just did that._)

Dean sits next to Ron, with Luna across from him; Andromeda sits down next to Luna, and Hermione sits on the other side of her. George is directly across from her, and it doesn't surprise her in the least when he says, "I need to have the good ear facing the _funny_ side of the family," when it's plain that Percy is sitting on the side with the ruined ear. Percy gets up and goes to sit on the other side of Hermione, thus breaking the pattern of the men on one side of the table and the women on the other. His place is taken by Xeno Lovegood, then Fleur, with Bill across from her.

At the foot of the table sits Molly, with Harry on her right and Ginny on her left… if Andromeda reads aright, then Ginny is absolutely correct about her relative precedence.

Andromeda is watching the dishes, and she notices that Percy and Hermione only take food from the common serving dishes, not any of the treats that might be cooked and _prepared_ individually. Similarly, they both inspect the tumbler and wine glass at their place setting. Harry is watching them, and looking at Ginny's face. Ginny looks tense, miserable and half-sick; her eyes have a haunted look.

Andromeda notices that when Harry makes eye contact with her, his eyes slide away almost immediately. He's still uneasy with her, and she's not sure if it's her resemblance to Bellatrix or her possible judgment of his performance as godfather to Teddy.

Fleur stands and levitates the cut-glass decanter; Lavender declines a serving, but otherwise everyone else nods and allows the floating decanter to fill their glasses with the dimly glowing red wine with the ambrosial scent. Percy lifts his to his nose and frowns, in a way that reminds her far less of a connoisseur than a Potions Master doing a preliminary assay. Hermione follows his lead.

Arthur waits for the glasses to fill, and for Lavender to take a portion of pumpkin juice in her glass, and then proposes a toast to the first Christmas of the peace. "May it be peace in earnest," he says.

Everyone murmurs assent and drinks.

The dinner settles into a cacophony of conversation. George is telling Xeno about how well the shop is doing, Luna and Dean are talking about painting. Hermione asks Dean if he's heard about the Sargent portrait at Longbottom House. "Portrait of Miss Emily Chattox. _Not_ in the catalogue raisonne," she says.

Dean's eyes light. "No, I haven't heard of it," he says. "So there's a story, isn't there?"

"They had to Obliviate him. The daughter of the house was fooling about with Felix Felicis…"

Dean smirks and rolls his eyes (plainly he has a notion of what Felix would do to, and for, a painter) and then says, "So they Obliviated him, but did they _pay_ him?"

"It was Sophonisba Chattox who commissioned it, so my guess would be yes," Andromeda says. "She had a name for probity in money matters."

Luna smiles, and Andromeda wonders if Dean knows that it's her family they're discussing.

Percy buttonholes Hermione for a continuation of their political conversation, as Harry and Ron carry on an argument about the likelihood of the return of full-scale Quidditch after the trials. The teams of wizarding Briain have continued playing in spite of the prospect of no World Cup, but it's not the same. The Chudley Canons are doing surprisingly well, likely because their opponents are so thoroughly demoralized.

Next to her, in low murmurs, she hears Hermione and Percy exchange words about demography and surveillance, hears the words "CCTV" and "Luddite," "improved Trace," and "Unplottable," in a torrent of low-voiced discussion—or it might be argument—as they're drowned out, to listeners further away than she, by the chatter about Quidditch, house parties, and the New Year's Ball at the Ministry.

At a break in this colloquy, Dean leans across and asks Hermione if Augusta Longbottom would entertain a request to view the painting.

She looks up from her conversation with Percy and says, "I don't see any reason why not. I'll ask her when I'm at Longbottom House tomorrow." She adds, "I think you'll like it. It's actually a _wizarding_ portrait. Very talkative." She smiles. "I _guarantee_ you will learn some things about Quidditch."

There's a flicker of something on Molly's face, and a giggle from Lavender. At the sound, Hermione turns a light and attractive shade of pink, but her eyes sparkle and an apparently involuntary smile quirks her lips. Andromeda remembers the jokes at the Shell Cottage veterans' group, how Lavender claimed that Neville had been in love with Hermione since childhood, "or maybe it was just life debts from Potions class." And now Hermione has an invitation from his family for Boxing Day.

Andromeda would guess that Augusta extended the invitation, rather than her grandson.

At the end of the meal, Arthur asks if anyone would like celebratory Firewhiskey. There are two bottles standing on the sideboard, the one from which Ginny has been replenishing her tumbler and another one, as yet unsealed.

Andromeda watches as Arthur unseals the bottle and pours a measure for Bill, Xeno, Harry, and Ron, while Molly declares that they ought to finish the last of the other one, and refills her daughter's glass, and pours a measure into Percy's and Hermione's tumblers, before setting the bottle aside and waving her wand to lift the dishes from the table and send them into the kitchen in an orderly procession to wash themselves.

The family and guests stand up and migrate into the front room to drink Firewhiskey and to talk. Hermione absently takes her tumbler and lifts it to her lips, but is interrupted by Harry, who wants to have a brief word in the back garden, _if it's possible._ He has a look of fierce concentration that belies the casual wording.

Hermione puts down the tumbler and takes her cloak. "If it's just a minute," she says.

Harry throws on his winter cloak, and the two of them slip out the back door, Harry still holding his tumbler of Firewhiskey.

Andromeda drifts to the back window, and looks out to the snowy dimness of the garden. Hermione has cast _Lumos,_ and there's a blue-white glow of wandlight lighting both her face and Harry's. He's saying something to her, rather urgently it appears. Whatever it is, he's won his point, for she puts out the wand tip and they walk, not back toward the house, but further away into the winter evening—

--where they wink out, presumably Apparated. Oh, very interesting.

A scant few seconds later they reappear. Andromeda is quite puzzled, and then thinks that they must have changed their minds about going wherever they were going.

Harry comes in the back door first, his hair covered in more snow than Andromeda would have thought possible to fall in the few minutes that have passed. No, it stopped snowing _here_ a while ago; wherever they went must have been in a virtual blizzard.

Hermione follows, her hair springy but bearing no burden of snow, and a smug expression on her face. "Impervius," she's saying, "I thought Aurors at least remembered weather-repelling charms."

Harry makes a rude gesture at her, and against all expectations she laughs.

"Honestly, Harry," she says, Vanishing the snow in his hair and applying a drying charm, "you get out of Hogwarts and you run wild."

Hermione picks up her tumbler and makes to head back to the front room; she's intercepted by Percy, who's looking over his shoulder at Molly.

Percy is not looking where he's going, because he actually collides with Hermione, hard enough to spill her drink. She looks startled. He takes her arm and they go out the back door to sit on the back steps. Andromeda sees the glimmer of expertly cast bluebell flames, before the door closes behind them.

Molly, meanwhile, is deep in conversation with Xeno Lovegood.

The Ministry has finally approved repairs on the house, and he's quite thankful for the hospitality Molly and Arthur have extended, so certainly come spring, when they're neighbors rather than housemates, they'll all have an invitation to picnic under the tower and fish for Freshwater Plimpies in the stream that runs alongside.

Molly nods and sips at her drink with an absent look. Andromeda looks up and locks eyes with Harry, who has been staring at her all this time, apparently. Xeno and Molly drift into the front room, while Harry gravitates to the kitchen. Unexpectedly, he douses the light with a quick sharp _Nox._

The kitchen is faintly lit in the reflected glow of the bluebell flames that Hermione has cast, as she and Percy are sit on the back steps, apparently under the influence of a warming charm. He has his cloak draped over his thin shoulders, not pulled closed against the wind but loosely hanging in folds over his lap.

An empty tumbler gleams at Hermione's foot, and Percy holds his own tumbler in his hand, having apparently forgotten that it was there, and gestures with it. Hermione reaches over and takes it out of his hand, and gently puts it down on the ground.

Percy stares at his open hand, and then unexpectedly leans forward, head in hands. Hermione is sitting next to him in a listening posture, and when he raises his head, Andromeda sees the fresh tracks of tears on his face, shining in the pale light of the bluebell flames.

And then the unexpected—or dreaded—happens; without a second's warning, Hermione and Percy are clinched in a desperate embrace, and he's kissing her, and she's running her hands up his back, under his cloak.

Harry turns to Andromeda with a look that recalls Sirius at his most haunted—black hair against pale, waxen skin—and says, "Oh _shit._"

Andromeda shakes her head, and puts a finger up to her lips, with a quick nod toward the guests in the front room. She pushes open the back door a few inches and leans out, letting a faint breath of damp, chill air into the kitchen. Percy and Hermione look up at her.

"Do you mind if I take your glass?" she says.

Hermione frowns, shakes her head, and hands her tumbler up to Andromeda.

Andromeda sniffs it carefully, and there's the faintest trace … of the lilacs that grew in the tiny garden of Ted's little house, … and there's a scent she hasn't remembered in years, the way Tonks' hair smelled when she was a baby, that wonderful scent of _baby,_ silky skin and unimaginably bright eyes, …

Her heart plummets. Yes, she'll take it to Horace Slughorn, but she already knows the verdict.

Percy looks at her, reaches down, and says, "Take mine too. I think there might be enough left in it to do a decent assay." There's a faint, grim smile on his face. "I don't know what it's going to do to the Flutterby bushes, but the roots got a good dousing."

Harry looks at Hermione, and then at Percy.

Andromeda says, "You know, I think I'd like to have a look at the garden. It's quite lovely with the fresh snowfall, and Hermione's quite a dab hand at warming charms."

The three of them stare at her. _Gryffindors._

"It's stuffy in here, and I'm feeling the need of a breath of fresh air."

Any half-awake Slytherin, yes, including idiot Draco, would be out the door and sitting on the garden bench by now, ready for a proper conspiratorial conference. When in Rome, she supposes. No hope of hinting; she'll have to take direct action. She takes Harry's arm and drags him with her through the open door, pushing it closed behind her. Hermione and Percy startle and jump to their feet to avoid being pushed off the back steps.

"The garden, _now,_" she hisses in a low voice.

From the vantage point of the garden, in the soft and deepening snowdrifts by the garden bench, the windows of the kitchen throw warm golden light into the gloom… light that does not go far enough to reveal them to a casual watcher.

Hermione casts a Disillusionment Charm on each of them… at last, someone who understands what's afoot, Andromeda thinks. Of course, Horace Slughorn had apparently said in so many words that she ought to have been Sorted into his house, except for the requirement of bloodline.

By the dim light of Andromeda's wand, cast with her back very carefully to the kitchen windows, Hermione's face is a ghastly white. "That's Amortentia, isn't it?" she says. Percy nods.

"So far as I could tell, but the nose is actually a reasonable check," he says. He's composed himself quite admirably, but given what crosses his desk on a daily basis, what's just happened barely registers as an atrocity. The shock is chiefly that it's happened on his home ground.

Hermione has produced some sort of webbing—a variant of Incarcerus, it looks to be—and bound up the tumblers before placing them in her little blue beaded bag. _The girl who has everything in her handbag_, Andromeda thinks.

"So what's the first stop?" Hermione says, in her brisk sensible tone.

"St. Mungo's," Percy says decisively. "Only it will be the devil's own time convincing _her_."

"I'd call Horace Slughorn if I were you," Andromeda says. "You're talking about involuntary commitment, aren't you? And without a Potion Master's word that this is actually Amortentia…"

Harry raises his wand to cast _Accio_; Andromeda doesn't know what the direct object is, until the door swings open and a bottle comes hurtling out to land with a satisfying thump in Harry's outstretched hand.

"The bottle Ginny was serving herself from," he says. He peers at it critically by wandlight; there's a bit sloshing about in the bottom. "And Mrs. Weasley poured from this one."

Andromeda says, "So you're sure."

Percy says, "I've been watching for some time, ever since we tried to talk to Ginny. All of it matches, every bit. I just didn't want to believe what I was seeing." He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, making it stand on end much like Harry's, and then smooths it down again. A compulsive habit: ruffle, smooth; ruffle, then smooth again, as if he were petting an animal, as if his head were some sort of beast that he was alternately teasing and soothing. The dim light picks out wrists bonier than she remembers, long fingers—scrivener's hands, he has—oddly reminiscent of her nephew's (and her sister's, and her cousins', and her own).

Hermione says, "Well, then, we're decided. Who's going to distract her? I'll take her if need be."

"No," Andromeda says. "She'll be _expecting_ it from you. I'm in the background." She doesn't add: a middle-aged woman (not a rival) and therefore of no particular interest; a sympathetic ear; a grandmother, in fact the grandmother of Ginny's godson. Practically invisible, she is.

Harry is still holding the bottle and staring at the darkly gleaming liquid in the bottom as if it held the answer to some cosmic riddle. Well, it does: the puzzle of why Ginny has been sliding into insanity these four months and more, with no one but a ragtag band of friends to arrest her fall.

Hermione says, "All right, I'll distract her and you take her." She looks at Harry. "Are you in or not?"

Harry looks at her and momentarily narrows his eyes, and then sighs. "I'm in. I made rather a mess of it before." And then with an oddly childish, plaintive tone, "But it's _Christmas night_…"

Hermione says with a sardonic expression that it will be high tide in St. Mungo's emergency receiving and he needn't worry about staff being on hand.

Spoken like a true aficionado of hospitals, Andromeda thinks.

Hermione dispatches her Patronus—first to Horace Slughorn, then to Boudicca Derwent, telling them to meet her at St. Mungo's Spell Damage as soon as possible.

Harry says, "I'll tell her we're going to _have a talk_, and you come along as well…"

Hermione smirks; so she's to be bait. Percy takes her arm and reassures her that he'll be watching…

Hermione says that _someone else_ will be watching as well, so it might be prudent to put on a show. Percy frowns; she pulls him in close and puts a possessive, grasping arm around his waist. "What are we supposed to have gulped to the dregs?" she says. "Honestly, Percy, for a wizard with twelve OWLs…" He smirks in reply then, looking very Slytherin indeed (and well he could have been, she thinks; no law but Weasley precedent to forbid it), and lands a sloppy, badly centered kiss on the top of her head.

The Floo won't do—it requires giving away one's destination—so Harry will manage the side-along with Ginny from the garden and the rest can follow…

No one is in the kitchen; one by one, they slip through the door and silently close it behind them. Hermione removes the charm, and she and Percy proceed to stagger into the front room, arm in arm, as if they were slightly tipsy lovers trying to be discreet, with Percy disarranging her hair and she leaning into him with as much of her body as possible. Heads turn, eyebrows flicker up, but Andromeda notices a sort of impassive interest on Molly's face—the woman really is unreadable, isn't she?—and as for Arthur…

… no, she doesn't want to look at Arthur, but she keeps him well in view in her peripheral vision. They're about to cross Molly in a major way…

Andromeda goes upstairs to get Teddy, and throws a cloak about her shoulders…

… and comes downstairs to hear Harry saying to Ginny, "Come talk to us in the garden."

Ginny turns, tumbler in hand and a blazing look on her face, mid-anecdote. She's just been re-telling the story that is making the rounds of the Auror office, the one that Andromeda has by heart even though everyone makes a point of not repeating it in her hearing, the all-too-repeatable tale about Druella Rosier Black, Abraxas Malfoy, a dose of Polyjuice and a turkey baster. "A Muggle kitchen tool!" is the punch line, of course, but Ginny hasn't gotten to it yet…

Her eyes light on Hermione and blaze yet brighter; as hoped, she narrows them, nods, and follows Harry into the kitchen.

With a proper imitation of reluctance, Percy lets Hermione disengage from his encircling arm as they push through the kitchen door and into the snowy garden.

"So what is this?" Ginny says in a hissing whisper. The drink's still in her hand, and Percy is eyeing it greedily. A full sample—what could be more enticing?

Hermione says, "I hear that you told Harry what happened in the loo at the Three Broomsticks. Who's being jealous of whom?"

"You bitch," Ginny says, teeth bared and eyes gleaming; Andromeda feels a jolt of fear, as when she first sighted the werewolves in the shadows of Ted's garden.

Just as that night, she might not be returning. In any case, she's glad that Teddy is with her, even if (once again) she has only the clothes on her back.

Harry continues, "So you said, 'Now I've had her too,' and I was just wondering…"

Ginny stares from one to the other, wand in one hand, drink in the other, hesitating—

--and in that moment, Andromeda casts the body-bind as Percy levitates the tumbler from Ginny's suddenly rigid hand. Slick work, that; they only lose about half of the firewhiskey in it.

There's a staccato series of _cracks_ as Harry and Ginny, then Hermione, then Percy Apparate. Andromeda brings up the rear, with Teddy, as the unlikely group materializes one by one in the alley outside Purge & Dowse.

In London, it is snowing.


	28. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

* * *

As Hermione predicted, the waiting area in Spell Damage is full; there are the patients with newly sprouted, cursed protuberances sticking out of their faces (and in one case, waving); those whose clothes are still smoldering from post-prandial recriminations; and the usual collection of sullen or traumatized children and angry spouses…

Derwent is waiting there, her Healer's robes thrown on over a rather more festive garment, long dark-green velvet robes with a design of oak leaves and mistletoe on the facings, in sparkling silver and red. She raises one eyebrow as Harry gently levitates Ginny onto the waiting gurney, the snow dropping from the cloak in which he'd hastily wrapped her in the alley. Ginny's lips are white and her eyes wide, like a wild animal startled into defense. Luckily she's completely motionless…

Hermione says, "Professor Slughorn…"

"Is waiting, though he's not sure of his business here."

"Suspected Amortentia poisoning," Percy says, in a cold firm voice. He holds up the firewhiskey bottle, and Hermione produces the tumblers from her bag. "And we have the drink she was having just before…"

"And our drinks may have been contaminated as well," Hermione says. Andromeda notices the careful diplomacy of her wording: _contaminated,_ not _spiked_ or _tampered with._ "We aren't sure, of course, and aside from her, none of us actually drank any of it…"

"Though to the nose, it's Amortentia," Percy says, his voice shaking a little. _What did he smell, I wonder?_ Hermione's hand closes on Percy's arm, in a quick reassuring squeeze. He indicates Ginny. "Could you check her…?"

Derwent is already running a spiral of pulsating light from her wand-tip; it wraps Ginny as if in a cocoon, slowly rolling through the spectrum from deepest red through the red-orange-yellow of hot metal to the yellow-green of light through summer leaves… until it fades into violet so intense it hurts the eyes. Around her face, throat and breast it shows a clear, vibrant gold-rose like a cloudless sunrise.

Derwent's face is grim. "Amortentia, most certainly. It's rare to actually pick it up in the signature," she says. "Usually we have to piece it together after the fact."

Percy says, "Intensity peaks within … half an hour of ingestion?"

"More like fifteen minutes. You did an admirable job…" She frowns, takes one of the tumblers and sniffs deeply, as Percy had the wine-glass at dinner. Her professionally grim expression softens into something like wistful nostalgia, and then she exhales a long steady breath. "To my nose, yes. Amortentia."

Horace Slughorn walks in, green brocade dressing gown flowing about him, so that momentarily he looks like one of the Healers, except in a somewhat more elaborate uniform. He nods with a smile to Percy. "Mr. Weasley." And then, "Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, what a pleasure." Percy hands him the bottle and the tumblers.

Derwent says, "I believe it's a legal matter. Confirmation of Amortentia."

Slughorn accepts the bottle and the tumblers, draws in a long breath over each one, then takes out his wand to do a similar charm to the one Derwent just cast on Ginny. He nods. "Rather thoroughly contaminated, I would say." He says to Derwent, "I would administer the standard antidote…"

Derwent flicks her wand; the diagnostic cocoon of light disappears, and Ginny's mouth and throat relax. A flask appears in Derwent's right hand, which she lifts to Ginny's lips. "Drink," she says soothingly, "drink, and you'll be feeling better in short order."

Percy whispers to Hermione that the antidote is rather harshly bracing, being a specific against Amortentia dissolved in a solution of standard Sobriety Potion. It's not uncommon to administer Amortentia in the second or third glass in a round of Firewhiskey; the initial intoxication, and the heat of the beverage itself, usually serve to mask the otherwise unmistakable signs of Amortentia.

Slughorn adds, rather acerbically, that the pedagogical purpose of the sixth-year Potions demonstration is to put students on their guard, to suspect something if they should suddenly smell something with marvelous associations …

Percy says to Hermione, "On our side of the border, a Proustian moment might well be foul play." Hermione raises an eyebrow, and Percy smirks.

(Andromeda still remembers explaining to him that the fat volume on the shelf in her shop had nothing to do with proper use of time-turners, in spite of which he bought it, since his Muggle-born girlfriend had told him it was _interesting_.)

Ginny has closed her eyes; Derwent releases her from the body-bind, and she flops onto the gurney like a discouraged rag doll. Discouraged, indeed, because the expression on her face is one of crumpled sorrow, and there are tears leaking out from under her eyelids. Harry takes her hand and chafes it. "It's all right," he says in a low voice. "Ginny, it's all right."

She turns away from him, wrapping herself in the cloak; it's the gesture of final despair: _leave me alone to die,_ that back says, as if turning to the wall for the last time. Through the folds of the cloak, Andromeda can see that she's trembling … no doubt, with the effort of suppressing her sobs. Percy moves in to sit next to her, whispering something to her, something soothing and tenderly rhythmical, as he strokes her hair.

Derwent says to Harry and Hermione in a low voice, "I think it prudent that she stay the night here."

Harry makes as if to object, and Hermione says, "Harry, we'll be close by. Grimmauld Place…"

Harry says, "I hate that place. I _hate_ it. It's not home."

Hermione says, "It's a safe house. That will have to do."

"But all my things are at the Burrow."

She shakes her head. "I took the liberty…" She pats her blue beaded bag. She looks at Andromeda. "And as much of yours as I could be sure of. Your clothes and Teddy's baby things, for certain." She says, "And Percy's too."

Harry frowns. "But when?"

"About an hour before I arrived. You told me that everyone was downstairs then."

Andromeda says, "What about the security?"

Hermione says, "Harry and I had someone look at the house to upgrade the defenses. Not that they were anything shabby before…"

Andromeda shakes her head. "Werewolves. Dementors."

"We're proof against werewolves. As for Dementors… nobody really knows, but we have at least two members of the Defense Association waiting up for us."

Harry frowns.

"Lavender and Ron will be there when we get there."

"Are they in on this?"

"No, Ron doesn't know, but I think Lavender suspects. Anyway, they'll be meeting us there…" she consults her watch "… in about half an hour."

Percy looks up. "I can stay the night here with her, if you need."

Derwent says, "We'll be putting her under as soon as we're sure we've cleared the last of it out of her system." She adds, "It would be a good thing if you were here when she woke up."

Harry says, "When will that be?" He has on his stubborn look. "I want to be here too."

Derwent says, "Approximately eight o'clock tomorrow morning."

Percy says, "Well, we may as well get a good night's sleep."

* * *

Grimmauld Place, again, and in the darkness of Christmas night somehow it's comforting to lie awake in the very room in which Aunt Walburga would lodge her and Bella and Cissy, on their visits to their cousins' London house. No fairy lights, no decorations, nothing that pretends to other than blackest desolation. Teddy sleeps soundly, his chubby arms and legs flung wide, his square, solid body his inheritance from his earthy grandfather, not his slight father or tall and slender grandmother.

In London, even in a magical house, one cannot see the stars.

Eventually, she falls asleep.

In the cold dawn, she hears them whispering outside her door: Harry and Hermione and Percy. Percy says he can't go back, it's Boxing Day but he's not a Weasley any more, not if you ask his mother. (His position reminds her of Sirius—he's one more in a house of renegades.)

Harry tells him he can stay, more or less as long as he likes. If there's any advantage at all to being Heir to the House of Black, it's the ability to offer hospitality—even if it is of a chill and haunted sort. And it's convenient to the Ministry … and he expects that Dean and Luna will be joining them shortly. Ron and Lavender just went to bed, having done the night watch for Dementors.

Hermione says she's expected at Longbottom House for breakfast, but if Harry needs her there when Ginny wakes up …

Harry says he and Percy will handle it. Ginny might find it too upsetting to be confronted with the one she's unjustly accused for so long. He knows, anyway, about Ginny and Neville, since he overheard that bit. No, he didn't want to talk about it at the time, but it does explain quite a bit. She couldn't believe that he hadn't, because she had.

"Oh," Hermione says, in the tone of one who's just had confirmed what she'd only suspected: a foxhole romance, an affair under fire. It was the night they learned that Luna had been taken, and it was comfort, and Ginny wasn't Harry's girlfriend then since he'd broken it off, and in any case both she and Neville were thinking of someone else as they…

… did whatever it was they did, which Andromeda can guess, remembering Sirius and Remus. She can guess. How many children were conceived during the First War in the throes of sorrow or terror or elation?

"It doesn't matter," Harry says. "It was wartime. We didn't have such a bad time of it on the run. It was Hogwarts that was hell." (There's a hoarse choking noise.)

"Oh, Harry," Hermione says, and the choking noise is muffled, the noise (Andromeda guesses) that is Harry crying, what she's never seen him do, and Hermione hugging him and telling him that he's right, it was wartime, and one shouldn't …

No, it's more a matter of what was done to her, he says, because _someone_ feared that she'd fly away. And now she'll never forgive herself, even though it wasn't her will but her worst thoughts…

Percy says, in the coldest voice she's yet heard from him, that the magistrates of the Wizengamot mistook themselves, centuries ago, when they failed to class _all_ means of compulsion as Unforgivable; it's a curious point of wizarding law that only the Imperius Curse is so designated.

Andromeda gets up, and throws on her dressing gown, and opens the door. She tells Harry that everything will be a great deal easier on a solid breakfast. And she does know her way around that kitchen, notwithstanding that Kreacher used to chase her and Sirius off every time he found them poaching on his turf.

Harry may not know it, but his late godfather was a dab hand with an omelet, and he learned the art at his cousin's knee. So she'll be pleased to demonstrate…

Percy agrees that one certainly can't expect to sort this out with only the thin fare of the visitors' tea room on one's stomach. That's one thing he's learned in the refugee office: even a hopeless situation looks a great deal more cheerful on a full stomach.

Hermione offers her help. Harry wipes his eyes and says no, she's got a Boxing Day breakfast date with Neville and his Gran, and in any case, she's absolute _pants_ at cooking.

"Fat lot of gratitude _you_ have," she says, swatting at him. "Who was the chef on the Camping Trip from Hell?"

That older-sisterly gesture tells Andromeda that whatever happened in the snowy garden, it's knit the rift between them—a fragile repair, for certain, but sturdy enough to allow for some teasing.

"You were," he says. "So you've got a lifetime dispensation."

"And a pension, I would hope," she says, and then starts, because _money matters_ are a little too close to the bone.

He looks at her levelly, takes off his spectacles, and wipes his eyes. "You're right," he says. "We'll talk about it when you come back."

* * *

**Author's note:** Apparently Percy Weasley read Proust's book in the original French (the title, _A la recherche du temps perdu_, could be translated literally if somewhat incorrectly as "In search of lost time").


	29. Chapter 29

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

* * *

It's quiet, after they leave, and the house creaks to itself, in the way of a very old house with wooden floors; it has its opinions of the passing generations, but unlike Longbottom House, built of stone and keeping silence likewise, it allows itself to comment. In between the comments, Twelve Grimmauld Place has its own particular silence, that to her ears is reproachful.

Teddy sleeps on, undisturbed by the whispered conference outside his door, and by its breaking up, as Percy and Harry leave for St. Mungo's; outside, the snow continues to fall, an enchanted snow that means to cover everything in drifts of white, to overwrite old sorrows and soften the architecture of this postwar wreckage in soundless, featureless white.

Andromeda has always loved the way that new-fallen snow, in shadowless overcast, has no dimension at all: looking at the ground, you might be looking into a white infinity as deep as a black night sky.

Black as night, black bejeweled with constellations: Black, the name under which she was born, and which she willingly traded for another, more plebeian.

She hasn't been to see Eddie Tonks since the end of the war. She doesn't know if his pub will be open, but it occurs to her that she ought to go look. After all, she's an inheritor of Ted's share in the enterprise, and even from a business point of view … which this isn't. She thinks about the years in which she resented Eddie's influence over her daughter, and smiles bitterly to think that the problem was much, much closer to home. Eddie Tonks provided a haven for Tonks and her friends from school, and he recognized the species at least: schoolchildren. And he did know to warn Charlie and Tonks off anything that would cross the line from mischief into something dodgy, for which she's grateful.

She ought to write to Eddie, at least to give him greetings of the season. A bit late… well, it could be New Year's as well, the first New Year of the peace. She doesn't know how Eddie came through it or even if he did…

She ought to write to Charlie, she supposes, but she's not sure what she ought to say. And it's not as if he'd warned his sister… well, that she doesn't know, not being privy to every conversation in that house (it only seems so).

Charlie had stressed his mum's skill, O's in all the Auror subjects—she would have qualified as an Auror herself, except—

Except she married (and that's not even a disqualification) and started having children right away, and then…

Andromeda knows that she never will puzzle it out, this ugliness that's staring her in the face. She remembers Slughorn's lesson again: whom you give to drink of Amortentia, you send to hell. Of course, the one who resorts to that doesn't love the so-called beloved.

She pokes at the remains of her breakfast, makes another pot of tea. Teddy is too young to notice the disruption of routine, too young to miss Boxing Day with the other children, his distant cousins. The children that aren't born yet—Fleur and Bill's little boy or girl, Lavender's child (if it survives), any children George might father, although to look at him she much doubts that will ever come to pass.

Any children Harry and Ginny might have … no, that might never happen.

She drinks the tea, as much to have something to do as for its smoky savor and stimulating warmth.

Molly Weasley is quite as much a Pureblood matron as her own sister. Yes, and she ought to write to Cissy, oughtn't she… greetings for the new year, and a change of address.

The thin glow of the snowbound square filters in through the windows, and Andromeda does a slow inventory of her belongings. Yes, most everything is here, even the dress robes she wore to the Halloween ball.

Hermione the provident… yes, she has everything, indeed. But how was it she managed it: "An hour before I arrived," she said. Andromeda can't put her finger on it precisely: only _something odd about the wording_.

She remembers Ginny offering to watch Teddy so she could go to the ball; she remembers her singing to him and pacing with him in the kitchen. Remembers her joking with her brother about the present they got for Hermione… that would have been September, yet there had been that ugly burst of jealous behavior at Harry's birthday party…

At Harry's birthday party, she was drinking Firewhiskey, yes, glass after glass of it, so it might well be that one of those glasses was spiked, for all Ginny seemed to think her mother wasn't noticing.

No, she won't think about that, for the puzzle is far too much like fish-hooks or razor wire, some fiendish tangle built to tear flesh, to dig the more deeply the more you pull at it. So she will back off, gently and slowly, and watch the snow falling outside the window, on Grimmauld Place; watch the eighteenth-century facades grey out in the snow, think about the church bells ringing over a London that doesn't exist any more.

In any case, it's no longer Christmas but the day after.

* * *

There are letters to write.

She picks up quill and parchment, and then realizes that it's Eddie Tonks she means to write, and then thinks yet again and dips her quill in the inkwell and begins to write; when the owl arrives, Eddie will know who it is. She doesn't know if he knows about Ted, she realizes; did anyone tell him? and then there's the question… well, there are many questions, and perhaps the best would simply be to ask if she may visit now that the war is over.

And if he did not survive the war…

Well, there's the address, and the instructions to the owl, and she'll know if it returns with the letter unopened: death or refusal, it's all the same, really.

She rather hopes that it reaches him, and that she does not find herself inheritor of a pub somewhere in Muggle London.

Then there is the next letter (a fresh sheet of parchment, a pause while the owl is out delivering Eddie's letter) to Cissy, and that one… well, that one begins simply: "Dear Cissy: You may write to me now care of Harry Potter at Twelve Grimmauld Place, London."

There are other things to say: the conventional greetings in honor of Yule, for which she did not have time yesterday in the excitement over Ginny (but that she is not going to tell her sister) and then the equally conventional wishes of good health and prosperity, to her brother-in-law who clearly has little of the one and less of the other; and then she thinks of foolish, stubborn Draco and there's nothing more she can say. It's all conventional with her sister, but war itself is a convention of long standing.

Who was the third sister, the eldest, dead now but casting a long shadow? The one who died laughing, yes—died laughing at Molly Weasley the unsinkable, brimming over with vitality…

The snow continues to fall. There's no sound in the house but the scratch of quill on parchment, and Teddy's soft, even breathing.

There's another set of greetings, though she might manage those by Floo.

She throws a handful of Floo powder in the flames, sticks her head through, and summons the mistress of Longbottom House. The silent house elf greets her with its unreadable dark eyes (do people come to resemble their elves after enough time? Aunt Walburga's elf Kreacher certainly resembled her, with his mad passion for genealogy and his obsession about wizarding bloodlines.)

There's an interval during which she sees the leaping green flames echoed back, flickering, on those rough stone walls.

Augusta Longbottom comes into the kitchen, after a pause; nods to acknowledge Andromeda's greetings for the holiday. At the inquiry after Hermione, Augusta smiles in a shrewd, amused way, and says only that Hermione and Neville have been … conversing … since just after breakfast and she would not like to be the one to interrupt them. A message can be relayed, of course.

Andromeda says, only to ask Hermione to stop at Grimmauld Place on her way back to Hogwarts.

Augusta nods. There's other business to discuss, of course, but that can wait until after the holidays.

In the quiet house and the quieter snowfall outside, that blankets the modern city and takes it back to the eighteenth century (of an age with the mundane cloak of this magical place betwixt and between), to the days of Elizabeth, to the sharp crackling campfires of a minor Roman encampment on a barbarian river, Andromeda loses track of the passage of time.

She writes to Kingsley, business correspondence, wrapped of course in ancient courtesies and the habiliments of long friendship, inside of which lies the cold steel of what she now wants, requires, demands as the price of the bargain. The money, the arrangement, the fix: now, before the indictments, before the trial. She hears Ted's shrewd, ghostly voice in her ear, warning her to get good value for her efforts, for this will be the last chance, in this quiet interval before the indictments are issued, before the whole business becomes official.

She writes a letter to Molly Weasley at the Burrow, icy and ambiguous in its simplicity, saying only that under the circumstances it is no longer possible for her to continue to accept the hospitality of the Burrow, and extending thanks for the sanctuary granted _for the duration._

That letter leaves open a great many possibilities, of course, including the traditional demand for satisfaction of honor under the Wizarding Code Duello. Molly, Gryffindor though she be, is nonetheless a Pureblood witch and will recognize what isn't spoken.

A whisper of ghostly laughter—might that have been Bella, a younger Bella, around the corner of one of those dark corridors?—reminds her that it's the true season of ghosts, the interval between Samhain and Yule, the eighth of the year that belongs to the dead; nearing the New Year, they grow more urgent. Bella, for all her sins, wants vengeance as much as the next ghost.

Andromeda tells her that her earthly business was finished with her Dark Lord, and there's quite enough to be going on with. The business she has with Molly Weasley has nothing to do with Bellatrix, and everything to do with Tonks.

There's the last one, now, the other one who died laughing: Sirius.

Cousin, might-have-been husband, though that would be in a world so different from the one that actually transpired that she cannot recognize it: a world in which they stood side by side in green and black and silver, under the gaze of an infinitely receding gallery of ancestors, silver and skulls back to the eighth century: long-fingered, sharp-faced, with black hair and grey or storm-blue eyes.

He left that world, turned his back on it, and so did she, but they left separately—certainly not holding hands.

(Cissy's eyes, the color of a winter sky before dawn, are not the eyes of the House of Black; not even when they shift, in certain lights, to a calm sea-blue, the blue of some northern sea. But that's another story, which might be settled in some other world, to no one's satisfaction.)

Much to her own surprise, she takes out her quill and parchment, and writes Sirius a letter. It's a very old custom, one she's never observed, but she knows for certain that he fell through the Veil, so he's very definitely on the Other Side; this letter might hope to reach him by the traditional route. She writes it all, what she can say only in privacy to the dead, to a fellow rebel: what Molly said about Hermione ("not our sort," "blood will tell"), Molly's reversal after the weather-working—oh, yes, and little Hermione, the fifteen-year-old girl he had met, a war hero and a weather-worker, if only accidentally, and Harry, his godson, the acknowledged Savior of the Wizarding World, and Voldemort dead (he'll be pleased to know that, for she suspects the Dark Lord, whatever became of the last of him, does not occupy the same part of the afterlife as he) and Bellatrix as well… the rest he knows.

She lights the traditional fire in the shallow brazier set into the center of the ancient writing table, and places the letter in it. "Go, find him," she whispers, as it flares and curls and begins its slow crumpling and writhing into ash.

She doesn't write a letter to Ted or to Tonks… well, they're not so far away as Sirius, and anyway, they know that she misses them. They still turn up in her dreams, night after night … but at least Tonks is not knocking on the window any more, insisting that she's alive.

And this is Sirius' house (no longer Aunt Walburga's) and it's only right to send him formal greetings.

* * *

She picks up Teddy from his makeshift cot and walks through the house with him, taking inventory. Her things are all there; Hermione made a rather comprehensive sweep, and if there's something that she missed, Andromeda isn't sure what it is.

Harry has been established in one of the rooms across from the one that Sirius occupied; the door to Remus and Tonks' old room is half-open; she peers in and the bed-curtains are half closed; Ron and Lavender are asleep, she under the covers, he above, sprawled out in the clothes he was wearing last night. He looks much younger in sleep, and she realizes that they've all come to look a great deal older than their years when awake.

The kitchen has been stocked with food;that must have been their errand last night. Harry came back with his hair full of snow; how long had he been standing on Grimmauld Place, staring at the house, or standing however long wherever it was that they went?

When they return from their visit at St. Mungo's they'll be hungry. She knows how that goes: you're absorbed in the problem, and forget your body; and when it's over, you're hungry, that is if you have the sense to realize that, or else you're tearful, quarrelsome, distracted.

The body is much underestimated, she thinks, pulling out the essentials for lunch.

The flames in the hearth flare green and Percy steps through from St. Mungo's.

"Where's Harry?" she asks.

"He's staying on," Percy says, and goes on to explain that Ginny is awake now, quite thoroughly awake, and the two of them are in conference with Derwent, who is gathering an account of everything that preceded this episode. Derwent is taking Pensieve depositions from both of them. It's going to be serious. Ginny is heartbroken and terrified, and Harry is hell-bent on justice.

Andromeda asks him if he would like lunch.

Yes, he would, and he can set to work on it as well; and there will be more people later. Lunch will need to be substantial, both in fare and in scale, so she'll want more than one set of hands, and it will soothe him to work.

There are people with whom you can share a kitchen, no matter how small, and Percy is one of that kind; they confer on the dishes and then set to chopping and dicing. Percy has an elegant way about him, whether he's conducting the work from afar with his wand, or slicing things by hand; she could well imagine him as a Potions Master, watching him dice onions swiftly with a kitchen knife.

It's not good, he says, but Harry is doing his best to salvage things. The key point of it, of course, is when it was that the dosing began, for that's the pivot upon which it all turns. How long has this been going on, because if it's been forever, if it's been since she was ten, then there really is no hope.

He does much doubt that, because there was no reason for it, and she was a child, with a child's infatuation.

He personally suspects that this is a development of very recent vintage, and if he had to guess, he would date it from some time in July, which is to say when Ginny and Molly started arguing about her future, when Ginny was talking about trying out for the Harpies or taking up the Ministry's offer of trainee Auror status. It was the first time that mother and daughter had really clashed, and Molly was not used to being opposed.

Or rather, she was not used to being opposed by her daughter.

And he's angry with his father, angrier than he's ever been, even in the days of their political estrangement, because he did _nothing_ to prevent this—just as he did nothing to prevent Fred and George bullying him, just as he never noticed anything amiss with Ginny, not only this last time, but ever.

There was another clue, too: the look on his mother's face when Celestina Warbeck was on the wireless, singing her old standards, and then the new song came on, _The Ballad of Tom Riddle_. He'll admit it was a departure from Celestina's jolly bawdiness, but that was no call for his mum's face to go white like that. There are those who flush in extremes of emotion, and those who go pale; and he had thought his mother was of the former, but he realizes that it's because he hadn't seen her extremes.

Andromeda says, "So it appears that we'll be housemates."

Understanding her perfectly, he says that he knows for once that he's failed, having pleased neither mother nor father, failed at least in their terms, but perhaps it's time to think that there are other standards to consider. He'd had a most interesting conversation with Fleur of all people, when they'd met at the Ministry a few weeks earlier.

Fleur said that she'd tried everything, when Bill first brought her home to the Burrow: bowing to Molly, helping around the house, deferring to his brothers, waiting on Harry… until she'd realized that life was too short for amateur theatrics. After Bill was savaged by Greyback, Molly had admitted that, too, but only after a fight, only after Fleur had said in no uncertain terms that she was going to marry Bill, and it hadn't been his face that had caught her fancy; no, it was something that no scar could alter.

Percy looks unutterably sad as he says this, brow furrowed in concentration, and for a moment she sees him twenty or thirty years hence, with the lines of that sorrow permanently etched into his face.

No, she tells him, none of this is going to find favor with Molly, but she rather thinks it's too late to be thinking of Molly, when it's Ginny who's lying in St. Mungo's, and there is no doubt that damage has been done. As for Percy himself, there are those who notice what he has been doing with the unofficial refugee office, even if his parents neither notice nor understand. It's not easy to do that work, she knows.

No, it isn't, he says, chopping a little more rapidly, chopping until the onions are mush and she has to take the knife out of his hand. He's shaking, actually, and she wonders aloud if anyone has said a sympathetic word to him all this time—

Hermione had, the night before. He was stupid and kissed her for it, and she kissed him back—she saw that, didn't she?—until they recovered themselves because really (he wants to be quite clear about this) he might have had a crush on her once, back in the summer, but she doesn't fancy him and he's really never quite gotten over Penelope.

He's sick at heart, still, thinking about the Amortentia in the Firewhiskey glasses, how close a call that had been…

…And there's someone else, but she turned him down—

Andromeda is a little taken aback at this rush of confidences.

--whom he won't name, an older woman. More of a mentor, until he realized he was falling in love with her… absurd though that might be. Certainly, he understands that initial attraction to Hermione, but after _the other… _Hermione only has it in germ: that brilliance and grasp of the details, a grasp of the essential fact that the universe is composed of details and that grand gestures and hand-waving won't save every situation: what more witches and wizards should know, and don't, which is why their world is such a thorough mess now.

Like magic, those gestures, utterly corrupting. Foolish wand waving, that's what Snape called it, and he was right.

He actually liked Snape's class, and even Snape himself, because that unholy favor to the Slytherins didn't really set in until Harry Potter arrived at Hogwarts, which arrival seems to have sent the erstwhile Potions Master into a permanent state of post-traumatic flashback.

Andromeda sets the food to cooking itself, and insists that Percy sit down.

Percy is apologetic over his own state; he knows he's babbling, knows that the worst of the present crisis is over because he can feel himself disintegrating; it's overwork, of course, and there's not enough time, and the _general _crisis is far worse than anyone imagines, even Shacklebolt—Merlin help them all if Shacklebolt _hasn't_ read the briefing that he and Hermione sent him—and he _does_ apologize, really, because he's been through this cycle of crisis and collapse more than once—two or three times a week now, really, but he should know better and absent himself when it happens… there's nothing that anyone else can do, so the very least he himself should do is to have the decency to keep it to himself.

Romance is a luxury, in the post-war; better to hold to the solid things, to friendship and mutual aid, because that will get them out alive. Hermione…

Andromeda wonders if he protests too much, until he finishes the sentence.

... Hermione has a time-turner; he's positive of it now. There wasn't time to do all they did, and he knows now where Harry went last night with Hermione. It was to Godric's Hollow, to lay a wreath on his parents' grave, and thence to Grimmauld Place, to provision it for their arrival.

And it does explain why she gets more done than anyone else in the Ministry, and after the holiday he will do some discreet checking about the committee meetings, but he knows she's on the War Crimes Commission and the Committee on the Status of Sentient Magical Creatures, with perfect attendance on both… but he swears he's seen schedule conflicts between them.

Oh yes, and he's seen bits of the draft report, which is _amazing_; the chapter on Goblin relations is _brilliant_ and the one on the Dementors—not asked for under the original assignment—goes further than anything he's yet seen. The chapter on werewolf regulation covers the subject back to the Statue of Secrecy and beyond… Except that the report offends against the Ministry two or three times in a page, they'd be fools not to adopt it as a text for History of Magic. And it's got all the dirty bits, so it would keep the little monsters awake, even if it were Binns doing the lecturing.

Notwithstanding all that, he's fairly sure that she's on the verge of a breakdown, and he would be an authority on that because he's seen it every morning in the mirror.

The Floo flares once more, and Percy composes himself—for not once in all this, for all the shaking in his voice, did he shed a single tear—as a firm baritone voice calls out, "Twelve Grimmauld Place!" and Neville Longbottom steps through the hearth fire, stooping a little so as not to hit his head, and then holding out his hand so that Hermione Granger can step through after him.

Not a minute later, there's another flare and the clear pale soprano voice of Luna Lovegood calls out the same location, and she steps through, followed in quick succession by Dean Thomas. They've just arrived from their Boxing Day visit at his mother's house.

Percy looks cheerful, now; Andromeda realizes that he's a man of action as much as any of his brothers. The committee has assembled, and the deliberations are about to begin.


	30. Chapter 30

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

Percy says that he supposes they ought to begin, although Ron and Lavender ought to have a part in the conversation as well…

Andromeda says that she looked in on them just now, and they were still asleep.

It wasn't a good night, he would imagine, and says no more. Meanwhile, as the rest of them are assembled… well, the news is not good. The news is definitely not good. Slughorn did several confirming tests on the contents of the bottle and the tumblers… and it's definitely Amortentia, very high grade.

There's a collective exhalation of breath, which has two distinct tones: those who have long suspected, and those whose suspicions are of very recent date.

Hermione says, in a very level, cold voice, that it seems it would be a legal matter from this point forward.

It isn't, of course, and Andromeda is pleased with the lucidity of Percy's explanation, which should make the matter clear even to an outsider. Ginny was not dosed with intent to defraud on a marriage contract, because there is no marriage contract. Molly and Arthur broke with tradition when they eloped, and none of their children since have done even the most loosely-woven traditional Pureblood contract, which contains the usual clauses about duress, love potions and Imperius.

"How charming," Hermione says, in a tone that makes it clear she finds it rather otherwise. "So they mention Unforgivables in a marriage contract?"

Andromeda involuntarily shivers at the word "they," suddenly realizing that she and hers are as alien to Hermione as Hermione is to them.

"Only to forbid them," Percy says. "But there's no marriage contract, so there's no legal matter."

"What about basic human rights?" she says. "Amortentia takes away your will the same as Imperius."

Percy nods, looking ill, and then says, "We only have the minimum of law, you know, to cover the things that offend everyone…"

Hermione stares at him for a long moment. "Murder, torture, or stealing someone's will—so long as you do it by certain specific means—carries a life sentence in Azkaban. Do it by a roundabout route and you're free and clear." She counts off on her fingers. "Engorgement Charm could be used for torture; you don't need the intent of Crucio, just to let the thing run without _Finite_; Amortentia takes away your will, just like Imperius; and any number of hexes or curses will kill you, albeit more painfully than _Avada_. But only _those_ three curses are named Unforgivable."

Percy nods. "The thought is that using those makes the matter unambiguous."

Hermione says, "And I've seen the Riddle depositions, so mistreating one's children is apparently not a crime, or at least not prosecuted… They seem to get more exercised about the Statute of Secrecy than any number of actual crimes."

Andromeda wants to wince, the way she keeps saying _they,_ as if she weren't one of them at all.

Percy nods. "That would be correct."

Hermione looks at him. "So you're telling me… it's a family affair."

Percy says, "Well, not exactly. But certainly family will have something to do with it."

"So," Andromeda asks Percy, "where is Ginny going when she gets out of hospital?"

He frowns. "Certainly not back to the Burrow. Maybe here … it will depend on how she feels."

Andromeda says, "About Harry you mean."

Percy says, "Yes. He's talking to her just now."

Neville asks, "How bad is it?"

Percy says that Derwent has given her a good prognosis; there's removing the compulsion in the first place, which is the easy part. What happens next is to deal with the aftermath of having one's will tampered with, which isn't dissimilar from aftercare for Imperius. Ginny is already feeling rather bad about the things she did under the influence.

Neville nods, with a sad expression, and Hermione puts fingertips to the bridge of her nose (yes, that broken nose at the picnic).

There's the sound of a tapping cane, and Lavender enters the kitchen, looking sleepy but reasonably soignée. She says that she heard the voices downstairs and wanted to know what's happened with Ginny.

Percy says, "We were just talking about that. It's Amortentia for certain."

Lavender raises one eyebrow. "And is it only Ginny?"

"No," Hermione says, "Percy and me as well. Except we didn't drink it. And I think Molly wanted to have a go at me back in October… she asked me about my intentions with Ron."

Lavender narrows her eyes, and says that she and Ron were already involved at that time. And she's already heard about Molly's cold reception of the news of her pregnancy… so Molly thought she would go behind everyone's back, did she?

Percy says that would appear to be the case.

Hermione says that she didn't understand it at the time, because she and Ron had been … a thing of the past … for some time. It made no sense to her, unless it had been some sort of warning…

Percy says that he heard about what had happened that morning, the weather-working, and he would bet that her points as a desirable marriage partner shot through the roof. And Molly's thought would have been to strike while the iron was hot.

Hermione says that she doesn't understand; it was an accident, and she ended in St. Mungo's…

Dean speaks for the first time. He says that it was very impressive, weather-working… he hadn't known that was real. His voice is dreamy and abstracted and his look is faraway, as if he's still contemplating that slowly wheeling cyclone.

Hermione says that Healer Derwent had said something to her about the Purebloods having a thing for raw power… that borderline Dark magic had … (she quotes) "an edgy sort of sex appeal." It's certainly not the case that she's any different than she was, but … other odd things have happened.

Lavender smirks. "That would be the picture of you and Draco in the _Prophet_, wouldn't it? He was staking a claim…" She giggles.

Hermione nods, looking chastened. Though, she adds, she wouldn't have assumed Molly had the same notions as _Draco Malfoy_…

Percy says that everyone, regardless of blood status or political opinions, worries about the persistence and power of magic in their line. Then there's the political prestige to consider. There are actually quite a few reasons she would look like an attractive marriage prospect. Heads of Family have done worse than Amortentia in the name of the line.

Hermione has folded her arms across her chest and is looking at the floor, shaking her head. Neville puts a tentative hand on her shoulder; she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. Andromeda can hear suppressed tears in it. She shakes her head, and then says, "Never mind. Go on."

Percy explains that Ginny will be in St. Mungo's for several more days, under observation. And no, there won't be any Aurors calling on his parents to check their stocks of Potions. This is, as they say, very strictly a family affair.

Hermione shifts in her chair, very definitely wanting to say something, but keeps silent.

Percy says he's talked it over with Harry, and the consensus is that they'll be moving to Grimmauld Place. The situation at the Burrow has become untenable in a number of respects…

Andromeda wonders how far he's speaking of his own case.

… and this location would be adequately defended, especially after the recent changes.

Percy says that Harry will be inviting all of them, though of course it's Andromeda's family house. She opens her mouth to correct him, intercepts his sharp glance, and falls silent, as he continues. He says there's the possibility of a duel, of course; Harry would be within his rights, and for that matter, so would Ginny, though intra-familial dueling is a rather more complex affair.

"Then it would be a great deal simpler if the challenge came from an _outside _ party with a prior grievance," she says, in a voice that startles her, and everyone else, because it dropped just that fraction of timbre and temperature necessary to turn it into Bella's.

Percy looks at her, compresses his lips, and nods.

Neville asks if that's going to help Ginny, to be fighting duels. Not that he's objecting on principle; if they are quite sure, he will volunteer to be Andromeda's second… because not only Ginny has been injured, but _his own, heart of his heart._

Hermione startles and looks at him in open astonishment, much as his schoolmates must have done when he slew the Dark Lord's snake.

Andromeda says that won't be necessary, as there are plenty of Slytherin Old Girls who would be happy to lend a helping hand, and the one she has in mind is eminently qualified…

Neville smiles, a brief predatory grimace that doesn't quite fit on his round, pleasant face, because of the alien flash of family resemblance to Augusta.

Dean says that all this talk of dueling strikes him as preliminary; he isn't clear who the guilty party is here. They all _think_ they know, but has anyone made the case decisively?

Hermione says, yes, there's a little thing called the laws of evidence, of which the wizarding world seems preeminently careless. She needn't remind anyone about Sirius Black…

ooo

The snow is still sifting down outside, and they have been talking for hours.

Teddy has woken up, fussed and demanded his morning feeding, and then promptly fallen asleep again. A relief, at least; though out of ancient habit, not trusting this house that doesn't recognize her, she carries him with her.

She hasn't been upstairs yet, to see once more the tapestry from which she and Sirius were obliterated these many years ago, nor has she been the object of a proper rant from Aunt Walburga's mad portrait (or the portrait of mad Aunt Walburga).

All that's been agreed is that Ginny will be coming back to Grimmauld Place; Percy will be looking after her, and he will see what he can do about getting some time off from the Ministry, although he's afraid that he's rather… indispensable. He makes a wry face, and then adds that he supposes he's an object lesson in being careful of one's wishes.

Hermione says that they ought to have more one person running the refugee office at any rate. It wouldn't appear that Shacklebolt read their briefing at all, would it? At any rate, he's doing nothing.

Neville says that his Gran mentioned having a word or two with the Minister as well, and she's ill satisfied with the results.

Luna says that she will stay with Ginny, and Percy needn't worry. She says that Ginny was always kind to her when they were at Hogwarts, rather kinder than some number of other folk, to be certain.

Dean adds that he'll be willing to stay too, if it's acceptable to Ginny… and to Harry. Andromeda tries to remember what she might have heard about their prior relationship… there's too much to keep track of these days.

Luna smiles, and says that's at least one thing settled. It will take time, of course, because it was _months_ for her at Shell Cottage, but time does heal and so do friends. There's no question of _her_ feelings for Ginny being a matter of Amortentia.

Andromeda realizes that Luna's is the first real smile she's seen in the last twenty-four hours.

ooo

In between times, of course, there are the letters.

Some time after breakfast, the owl came speeding back, and not only is her letter to Eddie Tonks missing, but there's a reply, written on yellow paper and rolled into a cylinder and sealed with sticky tape, in Mugglish imitation of a wizarding seal.

Yes, he knew what had happened. One of Ted's odd-duck chums had stopped by to bring the telegram, as it were… the young one with the odd eyes, her cousin's chum, though rather shockingly aged since last they met. Still quiet, though. He'd had a bad feeling about it, the minute Remus showed up… well, and he reckoned that Andromeda had taken it hard, and no doubt there were affairs to wrap up, across the border. So there's no shame in a late letter, and of course she's more than welcome to drop by the pub any time she likes, and bring little Dora with her, and (he's surprised to be writing this) Dora's husband. And did he hear rumors of a sprog?

So it was Remus who took the news to Eddie… and Eddie doesn't know that he's dead, and Dora (no, Tonks) with him. And all who's left is herself, and Teddy… the _sprog._

She squares her shoulders and reminds herself that a daughter of the House of Black doesn't _flinch,_ though she's been doing it off and on all day.

Especially when Hermione Granger kept saying _they_ when she meant _wizarding folk,_ or more precisely, _Pureblood witches and wizards._ And she's thin and pale, with a feverish glitter in her eyes, and Andromeda wasn't sure if Neville's solicitude was for a lover or a patient.

Ron had just woken, groggy and unshaven, and stumbled into the kitchen to organize himself some breakfast, when the owl returned for the second time, this time from the Manor.

Percy prepared a second round of breakfast, almost absent-mindedly, as Andromeda read her letter and Ron sat at the table next to Lavender, looking as if he had just survived a night of holiday debauchery, rather than a night-watch for Dementors.

Cissy's letter is rather more cheerful. She and Lucius were permitted a Yule visit with Draco, who's under house arrest at Longbottom House. She's given him the news and he's taken it … not too badly. And Augusta Longbottom intervened with the Aurors and insisted they be left alone for a private family conference. Well, to be strict about it, Augusta sat at the other end of the drawing-room and kept an eye on them, with her wand in hand the whole time.

And she thanks her sister for the holiday greetings, and sends regards to Teddy.

Lucius sends his regards as well, she adds at the very end of the missive, right before the spring-coiled calligraphic tangle of signature.

Andromeda can't suppress a smile, a rather grim one. All it took to pry civil greetings out of Lucius Malfoy was a year as a hostage of his Dark Lord, thorough political defeat, the prospect of Azkaban and the near-death of his only son.

Late in the day, there's a third owl, this one unexpected. She frowns as she opens the window and the bird flies in, dropping snow across the sill. She feeds the bird its treat, and detaches the cylinder of letter from its leg…

… no wonder she didn't recognize the owl; it must be one of Augusta's. The letter, however, is sealed with her brother-in-law's family seal. It's from Draco: two paragraphs of weather report (all she might want to know of atmospheric conditions in the neighborhood of Pendle Hill) and then there's a peculiar little note at the end.

_I haven't much time, I know. Might I ask your advice on a delicate matter?_

Very likely the last words she ever expected to hear from her surly little nephew.


	31. Chapter 31

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

The snow has turned into slush by the next day, the sort of not-quite-water that has always seemed colder than snow itself, the false promise and the despair of spring.

The grey-blue weather outside makes Eddie's pub seem all the cheerier inside, with its well-worn booths and tables, and the bar that his daughter Audrey is just now polishing with a rag.

She breaks into a broad grin, "Is that himself?" Teddy answers with a big toothless smile, and a flicker of magenta in his hair. "Oh, he's just like his mum, isn't he?" She comes round the bar. "Can I hold him?"

It's as if she never left this place: and oddly, there's no flinch of affront, as she remembers feeling in the beginning, when she first met Eddie. Audrey has his face, too, round and that sleepy-looking aspect to the eyes, that you'd best not take at face value; the two of them were always full of mischief. Her hair shines red-gold under the lights, and as she smiles and holds Teddy and shakes his plump little hand, and spreads out his tiny fingers to compare to her own, there's that flash of resemblance to her own daughter; it's the dimple near the corner of the mouth, and something in the crinkle of the eyelids. Of course, Tonks' face never sat still in any meaningful way, but those were the features that most often took shape out of the play of fluctuating appearance.

"So is your father on premises?"

"He's in the back. Care for something?"

Andromeda shakes her head, as Audrey slings Teddy over her hip and goes back behind the bar. "You look half frozen. Let me set you up some tea."

What she would say, if she could manage it, is that it's not the weather so much as the ghosts, so many of whom are playing across the face in front of her, the ghost of her husband and her daughter, and what she doesn't see but imagines, which is Remus standing in this front room telling Eddie the bad news. Well, she was in hiding by then, hiding in plain sight, hoping that _they_ didn't descend some undefended evening or early morning…

The war is over, or so they tell her.

Audrey was right about the tea, because as soon as she has the enameled mug between her hands she knows that she needed it. She's needed something warm these last two days, because she feels frozen to the bone by everything she's learned, and that chill cannot be warmed by tea or sympathy, though they both help.

Eddie comes out of the back room. "Dromeda," he says. "You're looking well. So how's Dora and Remus?"

He would put it on the line like that.

Andromeda looks at him and says, "I'm sorry I didn't write." Takes another sip of the hot tea. "Thanks for the tea." Audrey smiles and commences a slow waltz with Teddy.

"They're gone," she says. "The last battle. I'm sorry I didn't write. Really no excuse." And then, as with Charlie, the tears are running down her face—most unseemly.

"There, there, Dromeda," Eddie says, and there's a resurrection of Ted in the awkward tenderness with which he gives her the handkerchief. "There. It's not good times, is it?" She takes it, grateful and embarrassed, and he says, "It was that same lot that got Ted, weren't it?"

She nods. That's true enough, regardless of who it actually was. Kingsley didn't tell her, and maybe he doesn't actually know. She doubts everyone lately, because if she could be doubting Molly…

… no, she's not _doubting_. She's quite sure, at least in the case of Tonks. She's quite sure that Molly dosed her to make the story come out the right way, and then dosed her again to keep her in place… whether she did that in the case of her own daughter, that's in doubt… because there's always Arthur, after all, though none of it makes sense.

No sense at all, unless it were a near miss on the way to something else… because there had been Bill, after all, and by Bill's account, his mother had been throwing all sorts of girls in his way… all except the one he wanted… well, that could well be it. Except somehow instead of making Tonks enamored of Bill, she got Remus instead.

Not pleasant to be thinking of that, that someone she knew from the First War, the mother of her daughter's school friend, would do such a thing, knowing what she does about love potions…

… knowing what she does, well, she'd always joked about it far too much for Andromeda's taste, how she'd captured Arthur that way, or at least hurried things along.

Andromeda drinks the tea and considers the light as it gleams dully, blue and cold, from outside.

Audrey is dandling Teddy and talking to him and pointing out the resemblance to their side of the family… As his face shifts, she adds, not missing a beat, how very like cousin Dora he is.

And then everyone remembers all over again that cousin Dora is dead, and a silence falls.

Eddie looks at his hands with a considering air.

It's Audrey who breaks the silence, finally. She says, "Was it like Uncle Ted, or …"

"They were in the last battle," Andromeda says flatly. "War heroes. I could show you the decorations if you'd like."

Silence falls once more, a long awkward pause that stretches out; Andromeda meets it with her tea mug against her lips. The hot brew is good, but even better is the rampart that tea mug makes against the world…

Ted looks at her through his brother's features; that's the unnerving thing. They weren't twins, but the family resemblance is strong. She had disapproved of Eddie, but now that he's the last living reminder, it's the ghost of her husband that smiles with his brother's face…

"And your family, Dromeda?" he asks. "How'd they come through?"

She says, remembering the nicknames, "Crazy B is dead. Lucky and the Princess are on house arrest, and Ralph… he's in prison, I think, last I heard." She frowns. "But I haven't heard anything in quite a while, so I don't know. Some of them died in prison."

Eddie looks knowing for a moment, in a way that Andromeda would not like to probe. He takes a bottle down from the shelf above the bar, unscrews the cap. "I think that tea needs some help," he says, and pours a dollop of the liquor into her enameled mug.

Yes, she quite agrees, feeling the faint burn, which feels medicinal, when coupled with the heat of the tea. She feels braced against cold of all kind, the cold outside and the cold of the grave, though of course that's illusory. There is no avoiding either one, however one may bundle oneself.

She says, "Oh yes, and the Clone. I quite forgot him."

ooo

She had quite forgotten the Clone, but his letter was still in her pocket: mostly weather report and that odd question at the end: might he ask her advice? No, it's not a blank contract proffered for her signature, but she's feeling as if she's been asked by far too many people to agree to one thing or another before she has the full picture: that would be Kingsley, of course. Her old friend.

She has altogether too many old friends from the First War who aren't what they seemed, now that the Second War has concluded and they've had a look around the post-war landscape. The happy ending is nowhere in sight. "Good" (she holds the notion with tongs) didn't so much prevail as avoid pitching into the grave; but there's time yet to complete the disaster.

She's grown cynical, of course, and she has to remind herself that this is not a clever statesman but an eighteen-year-old boy who's had a rather harrowing time of it.

Eddie frowns, running a hand through his thick straw-colored hair. "So Lucky and the Princess are for it, eh?"

Andromeda nods. "They're on the docket for the war crimes trial, almost certainly." She sighs. "And my nephew…" at which the Fidelius Charm closes her throat.

"How old would he be?" Eddie asks.

"Eighteen or so, give or take some months. Not a child at all."

Eddie looks at her. "If they don't send him up, he's yours, isn't he?"

Of course there's no question that the Fidelius is going to let her answer _that,_ but luckily Eddie understands perfectly well.

"So do you think he'll be needing a job? I haven't had a barman since Ted …" Eddie's voice trails off. No easy way to say that, is there? "…since Ted died," no that's not right, and "since Ted was killed" still feels brutal. "And Audrey's still in school."

Well, everything feels brutal. No one promised that the post-war was going to be pretty, only that they wouldn't be facing the same dangers as before. No promise at all, except for the usual: the unexpected.

Andromeda is still considering that question, when Audrey adds, "Your family's pretty posh, isn't it?" She turns to her father. "He might not want a job in a place like this." She bounces Teddy on her hip; nonetheless, he fusses. Andromeda reaches for him.

"He's wanting to eat," she says, and Teddy confirms the impression by making a grab for her as soon as he's in her arms.

Eddie says, "Well, he's family, her nephew, isn't he? And I would think if he comes out of it a free man, he'll have the sense to be grateful." He takes up the rag and polishes a spot on the bar. "Odd ducks, the lot of them, but I did like Sirius."

She says, "This one's more like Regulus." Eddie shakes his head. They only crossed paths the once, but it was memorable. She still remembers the look of shock and disdain that made Regulus look even more pinched than usual…

"He'd be hexing the customers, then," Audrey says, "and that would be a bad business all around."

"He's in no condition to be hexing anyone," Andromeda says, then startles as if she's given away a secret, which it is, on the other side of the border. On this side of the border, no one expects her nephew to be able to perform even the most basic magic, because _no one_ does.

ooo

The visit has been rather more successful than she'd had any right to expect. She has come away with an invitation for New Year's Eve, as well as the provisional offer of a job for Draco, should he survive the war crimes trials. An unexpected piece of luck, for she'd only been half joking to herself that this was all the patronage she could offer. Cissy would be aghast at the idea of her son working for a living, in trade no less, and waiting on Muggles, but as Eddie points out, it's money, and money isn't to be disdained. And by Eddie's reasoning, she is still family, and so her disagreeable little nephew is family by extension: if not an actual then an honorary Tonks.

When she returns to Grimmauld Place, Percy is waiting up for her. He has news of Ginny, who will be released from St. Mungo's to his care in a few days. She's in good health except for nervous exhaustion and of course the usual after-effects of Amortentia poisoning. Derwent will be sending her home with a supply of restorative Potions, which regime Percy will be supervising.

Healer Derwent outlined for him the traditional course of care for those who have been under the influence of Amortentia: a careful re-growing of roots, bringing oneself back to the things one does love. By and by (which can mean years) the experience of love loses the taint of compulsion. Ginny is luckier than many: she has a variety of loves, many of which have nothing to do with Harry. There's flying, and animals, and certain casts of weather; Percy and Ginny already had one such talk, in the hospital, and she talked about the dove-grey winter light and how she's always loved it.

And what she does like about Grimmauld Place: the staircase, and surprisingly (she'd said with a flash of mischief) the colors in the portrait of mad Walburga Black. "Silencio works wonders for art appreciation," she'd said.

Percy is reconsidering his job at the Ministry; there's only so much he can do, and there are a handful of Order loyalists to whom he can turn, but he can't leave entirely… Kingsley has told him in so many words that a good bit of it wouldn't have gone through without his own particular brand of Weasley fire and persistence.

But there's the rather more personal matter of his sister, whom he failed once, in the affair of Tom Riddle's diary, and who is rather bad off. He's seen her in the worst of times, and this is one of them.

And he's angry at his parents, angrier than he's ever been. He goes pale when he says this, and his mouth thins, and a knife-thin crease appears between his eyebrows.

He blinks, and pushes his spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose.

Andromeda feels sorry for Percy at that moment: his prim, upright persona doesn't permit him the outlet of colorful language—she well remembers learning the delights of profanity at her sister Bella's knee, yes, the air would literally blister blue and purple when Bellatrix Black let loose with a string of curses; she still has the burn scars from some of it—but not for Percy Weasley, who has always been the _good example,_ Perfect Percy, as his brothers used to call him.

Luna has been a great help, Percy tells her, as has Dean. They've set up a studio in the old library, and between the two of them they've decorated the room where Ginny will be staying. Dean has drawings of the mountains and lake at Hogwarts, and a lovely little still life of quills and parchment, with a Pygmy Puff unexpectedly frolicking in the midst of it all. It's quite atypical of the work of his that she's seen, and she's unsurprised when he tells her that he completed it this afternoon.

Luna has created a sort of curtain of light, soft blues and greens and purples—the healing colors of the sea, she says—which weaves through Ginny's room, and which she calls an _environment._ That, apparently, is what the Muggles call a work of art that fills a room. It looks like an earthbound aurora, and has neither figures nor faces nor landscape in it, but a lovely intensity of color. Andromeda finds it gives her a nostalgic pang for the underwater shimmering light in the Slytherin common room.

At length, she asks Luna why it has only half of the spectrum in it: if one is playing about with colors, why not the whole rainbow?

Luna tells her that the missing colors are Ginny's own: red and gold, the colors of fire. When Ginny is in that room, she will complete the spectrum. From the air (which Andromeda supposes is the Ravenclaw perspective) it is clear that fire and water need each other.

Air and fire and water, indeed: and then there are Ted's people, who are earth; they'd have sorted into Hufflepuff, the lot of them, just like Ted and Dora. Imagine that, offering a job to her nephew the Clone, whom they know only by his absurd nickname and his resemblance to Regulus Black, neither of which are recommendations. Sight unseen, they've decided he's kin, if he's related to Ted's Andromeda.

There might be a discontented subsonic rumble in the foundations of Twelve Grimmauld Place: the sound of Walburga Black turning over in her grave.

Andromeda smirks, and goes downstairs to the kitchen to write her reply to Draco; on her way, Walburga sets off on a rant; without looking, Andromeda offhandedly makes a rude gesture at the portrait. A gesture she learned from her daughter, she realizes. Never mind Walburga doesn't speak Mugglish; the intent is clear. "Blood traitors and filth!" she rants.

Andromeda shrugs and passes on into the kitchen to make tea and write a proper reply to her nephew.

ooo

_Dear Draco,_

_Your mother tells me that you had a pleasant visit with her and your father at Yule. I hope this finds you in good health…_

As good health as one can be in recovery from a bout of Cruciatus, but he's had the best care in wizarding Britain, and they've learned a bit since the last war.

..._ I would certainly be most willing to consult with you about the delicate matter to which you allude, although your last letter left it unclear. _

Well, that is an understatement, but she won't reproach the boy; whatever it is, it likely isn't something he's quite comfortable confiding to ink and parchment. She and Ted and Sirius didn't leave much of a correspondence, did they? All of it spelled to vanish into flame and air within a few seconds of reading, lest it be intercepted by enemy hands.

_I have a social engagement on New Year's Eve, but thereafter would be free to visit you at Longbottom House, if you would like to discuss the matter in person. Otherwise, you may write me care of Harry Potter at Twelve Grimmauld Place, London. (I know that you and Harry have been at odds, so do be assured that anything you write to me will be seen by my eyes only.) _

It wouldn't be amiss to visit Longbottom House in any event, given the number of matters about which it would be prudent to consult with Augusta Longbottom.

_Meanwhile, please accept my best wishes for the season._

_Your very affectionate aunt_

_Andromeda Black Tonks_

ooo

**Author's note:** A combination of Real Life and wayward Muse delayed the posting of this chapter. If the Fates are kind, we will be returning to the regular posting schedule next week.


	32. Chapter 32

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

It's been four days that she's woken in her old room in Twelve Grimmauld Place. The grey light is oddly restful, and the house is nowhere near as Dark as it had been during her childhood visits; but then Walburga Black was a Black of the old school, which meant elf heads nailed to the wall, Dark artifacts proudly displayed in the drawing-room, and if not Death Eater robes on the guests in the parlor, then certainly sympathy for that cause.

Walburga's influence still lingers in the grander parts of the house. Andromeda notices that everyone keeps to the least formal rooms; breakfast is eaten in the great kitchen, not in the dining room; evening gatherings take place in the library rather than the formal drawing room.

The kitchen at Twelve Grimmauld Place is dark and firelit; it doesn't look out onto the light playing in the foliage of a summer garden, and it's rather grim and stripped-down than cozily cluttered. Andromeda shakes herself sternly. She's being led astray by nostalgia for a beautiful place. Let her remember instead the near-duels between Molly and Ginny, let her remember George roughing up Percy, let her remember Hermione's posture of stiff-backed pain when she descended the stairs after breaking up with Ron.

Let her remember…

… what she does remember, is the night that Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Hermione all came home from the pub drunk, and woke her with the clamor of fire-irons being scattered across the kitchen floor.

She remembers Neville's solicitude for Hermione in her exhaustion. She wonders what's going on between the two of them, for it's plain that something is. Certainly it's plain from the last family council, right before Ginny came home from St. Mungo's. Hermione looked well-rested for the first time in months, and Neville was sitting next to her, beaming as if she were his personal accomplishment. Maybe she is, if he's the one who's convinced her to sleep and eat.

There's dedication to one's work, and then there's insanity.

Percy is guilty of that himself. He says that he knows it more the keenly now that there's no longer Molly to remind him; he has the Molly-voice in his head, and he knows it's right about regular meals and sufficient sleep, even as he wakes at three o'clock in the morning thinking about what the real Molly has done.

Andromeda knows that hour before dawn far too well. Why, nearly half a year after the end of the war, are they still living as if they were at war?

It's a rhetorical question, of course. The house is fortified with new defenses; she's learned that before Christmas, Augusta had done a tour of inspection and given Hermione a bit of apprentice-work, which she'd passed with flying colors. Things are slow at the Ministry now, in the hiatus of the holiday season.

Percy has his work at the Ministry of course, because the refugee crisis does not take a holiday; Harry and Ron have their trainee Auror duties. The training effort has slacked off, as the senior Aurors are on alert; there's some sense that there might be a demonstration or action on the part of the Death Eaters' remaining supporters at the holidays, and there's an undeclared alert. Meanwhile, the trainees are spot-checking the civilian Patronus training but otherwise are at liberty.

No one is quite sure what to expect when Ginny comes home… yes, it's home now, for the Burrow certainly isn't. They talk about who should greet her, and who should remain well out of the way, and how life can be made more or less normal.

Then they all sit quite still and stare at the center of the table, as if the answer lay there.

ooo

Like so many crises much worried in advance, it turns out in the end to be no crisis at all. At mid-day, Percy leaves for St. Mungo's through the Floo, and returns about forty-five minutes later, with Ginny in tow. They step into the kitchen, where Lavender is standing at the antique stove.

"Did they feed you there, or would you care for some lunch?" she asks. "And there's tea. Lots of tea."

Neville smiles tentatively and proffers the teapot, from whose spout a delicate tendril of steam feels its way into the chilly air of the kitchen.

Ginny smiles back, just as tentatively, and says that tea sounds perfectly lovely.

Lavender says that lunch will be ready momentarily.

Ginny sits down, still wearing her cloak—the cloak that Harry had wrapped around her at the hospital—and tries to look like a healthy person having a perfectly ordinary lunch with friends, and everyone else conspires in the illusion, which somehow makes it so.

Neville pours tea into the mismatched cups someone had brought to the kitchen in the Order of the Phoenix days. Three or four of them come from a set with design of a phoenix—no doubt someone's idea of a joke—that cycled from bonfire to egg to bird in somewhat dizzying succession. Then there are some odd souvenirs from the Quidditch World Cup (Ireland vs. Bulgaria), with Leprechauns on one side and Veela on the other, and another pair of cups with a design of a tiny child in traditional robes flying a toy broom in circles above a rather stylized meadow.

Andromeda notices that the cup he hands to Ginny has the phoenix design on it.

Ginny notices as well, smiles at the cup, and then at him, a very pale and determined smile, and drinks the tea. Then she says to him, "Neville, I'm sorry. About what I said…"

Neville nods. "It's all right. You were unwell." The plates float over and settle themselves on the table. "Have some lunch. It's quite good."

ooo

Andromeda, Dean and Luna show Ginny to the room where she'll be staying, and for the very first time, a look of real wonder shows on her face, lit blue and green and violet by Luna's wonderful curtain of light, that snakes and shimmers through the room. Luna shows her the spells to make it taller or shorter, to fade it to transparency or make it wholly opaque.

"It's winter," Luna says. "One needs a bit of color."

Ginny says that Percy told her… they'd been to Muggle London to see pictures.

Luna asks her if she'd like to come with them the next time. "They don't talk, of course," she says, "and they don't move, either, well, not most of them." She smiles. "There's the odd wizarding portrait in the National Portrait Gallery that tips a wink when it sees us. The poor things have to sit still most of the time, at least in daylight hours."

She adds, "They're uncanny at first, Muggle pictures, but after a bit… they're restful, actually. They stay in their frames."

Ginny says that she thinks she would like something that sits still and can be trusted not to get up to tricks. She doesn't know what she's going to do with herself now; she's so used to being busy, and now… She looks down. Everyone is working very hard at looking neutral, and Ginny is trying not to look ashamed. Andromeda knows that she's on leave of absence from Auror training, first for the investigation of the McConnell business and now for medical reasons. Derwent told her that the medical leave will least a few weeks, and she'll be assessed weekly.

Ginny says she's feeling rather tired, and would like to rest…

When Andromeda looks in on her a little later, she's huddled under the covers, asleep, her face lit by the soft glow of Luna's aurora.

ooo

In the last blue glow of that evening's twilight, an unfamiliar owl comes, beating its great wings slowly as it swims between the rooftops to her bedroom window. It bears an invitation from Bill Weasley to pay a visit the next day at Shell Cottage; he invites Andromeda and Dean and Luna for a little conversation _not _under the auspices of the Remus Lupin Foundation.

The owl roosts rather conspicuously on the bedpost as she walks down the hall to ask Dean and Luna if they can accept the invitation. She's quite sure that it has instructions to wait as long as necessary.

As it happens, they both are able to accept; Dean frowns a little at the wording of the invitation, '_not_ under the auspices of the Remus Lupin Foundation.'

It's an evening for letters; next comes an ordinary post owl bearing a missive from Eddie Tonks, amending the New Year's Eve invitation to include her nephew, if it could be arranged. She goes to the Floo and talks to Kingsley in his office.

No, the terms of Draco's house arrest do not permit him to travel on such short notice, and Muggle London would not be a prudent destination in any case.

"It's my _brother-in-law,_" she says with some impatience. "He's inviting his sister-in-law's nephew, not the notorious Draco Malfoy."

Kingsley tells her, in his imperturbable way, that New Year's Eve is entirely out of the question, even if he were able to override the house-arrest guidelines, because the Aurors haven't the staff available to guard Draco, given their other commitments. There's the alert, and there's the Ministry ball that night… Some time in the first week or two of the new year might be workable.

She writes the reply on the reverse of Ted's message and sends the owl on its way.

Last of all, for things do come in threes, there's a letter from Cissy, borne by the great Malfoy eagle owl. Cissy acknowledges her last message, confesses herself pleased that everyone in Andromeda's household is in good health. Given that her sister's new host is Harry Potter, Cissy extends greetings to him, expressing gratitude that her action on his behalf aided him in freeing wizarding Britain from the Dark Lord.

Andromeda recognizes that greeting for what it is: a reminder of the life debt that Harry owes her, and none too subtly either.

Cissy goes on to tell what she's learned of the date of the indictments; it will be some scant days after the New Year. She's trying to get more precise information as to the exact date, but meanwhile inquires if Andromeda might contrive to be with Draco when the Ministry owl reaches him. She and Lucius will be getting their indictments that day, and that bothers her far less than the thought that her son will be reading his indictment alone (_in the company of his enemies,_ is how Andromeda translates that). Having family close at hand will lighten her heart, and (she hopes) his as well.

Andromeda isn't sure how to answer; it will require thought. There's Eddie's invitation, and the fact that she'll have to ask Kingsley again (and it will be quite plain whose request she's relaying), and her own doubt that she would be Draco's idea of comfort on that occasion.

Provisionally, she'll say yes, but the letter will require careful wording.

She feeds the owl its treat and lets it wing its way back through the darkness. She closes the window with a little shiver not all from the winter air, and sits down to re-read Cissy's letter.

ooo

Shell Cottage is iced in rime, and the rocks are slippery. There's no question, even in this relatively bright morning, of a walk along the cliffs. Andromeda is grateful for the warming charms that Luna cast on the three of them; the girl appears to have inherited her mother's talent with charms, although not (Andromeda hopes) her wildly experimental bent.

They sit in the front room that overlooks the sea, rather a different prospect with the wind whistling under the eaves and a fire crackling on the hearth. Fleur smiles in greeting, her glow even brighter than at the Halloween ball, and pours hot tea for them; Bill brings in an assortment of bread-and-butter, pastries, and sandwiches.

Luna looks out the window and remarks that the place is rather different in midwinter. She remembers it in the spring, Easter to May Day, and how fast she healed in the presence of magic and the sea.

Fleur says that they're more than welcome to visit this coming spring, and she'll be pleased to host them as houseguests rather than convalescents.

Bill offers around the plate of refreshments, and says that it's good to see them, although the matter is not merely social. As they might have guessed, it is … a matter of serious business, though not the business of the Foundation strictly speaking.

The first question is most peculiar: are they able to cast a Patronus? A corporeal, stable Patronus?

Dean and Luna both nod, Dean frowning slightly. "We've been doing Patronus trainings every week or so, and it's second nature by now," Dean says.

Luna says, "It's rather nice, to practice remembering happiness." She takes her wand from behind her ear and sketches a little person in the air, who looks a bit like Luna and a bit like Hermione. The girl is casting a Patronus many times her size, a long-tailed creature with a very long neck and legs like an elephant.

Dean looks at the little glowing sketch and laughs. "Nobody has a brontosaurus for a Patronus." Luna looks at him and raises one eyebrow. He smiles. "That I know of."

"That's better," Luna says, and they both laugh.

Andromeda says, in a low voice, that she was taught the Patronus in the First War, by Remus Lupin. They'd drill fairly regularly, and now, of course… well, yes, she can say with confidence that she can cast a stable corporeal Patronus.

So, if she might ask, why is he inquiring?

He doesn't answer, and the next set of questions is even more peculiar: "Do you have any connection to the Ministry? Any contracts, agreements, binding spells?"

Andromeda is surprised that she can say it aloud, "Fidelius." She says, "But no binding contracts, written or oral, no Vows…"

Dean and Luna shake their heads.

Andromeda says, "Some dealings with Kingsley, but it's more things he's looking into for me. Nothing official in his capacity as Minister. Except… the Fidelius." She feels her throat close and knows she can't say the next bit, that it's in connection with the upcoming war crimes trials.

The way to telegraph magical constraint, of course, is to push against the boundaries of the spell, and a curse-breaker certainly knows the signs. She sees the flicker of recognition in Bill's eyes.

He repeats the question to Dean and Luna, "Just to confirm: _no_ contractual bindings to the Ministry. Being a Hogwarts student doesn't count, nor do the civilian Patronus trainings. And you both turned down the offer of Auror training."

They confirm their answer, and Andromeda sees curiosity in their faces. Luna says, "I'm to be apprenticed to Mr. Ollivander if I do well on my NEWTs," she says.

"No, Ollivander isn't Ministry," Bill says. "And Dean…?"

"It's Muggles who pay me," he says. "I sell pictures." Fleur stares at him, and he clarifies, "Muggle pictures. Not wizarding ones."

Andromeda says, "You're being rather hush-hush about this. What is this?"

Bill says, "A project. Not mine; I'm just doing some recruiting."

"And you said not to do with the Remus Lupin Foundation."

"Very definitely not. The Foundation has some agreements with the Ministry and St. Mungo's, having to do with the new werewolf protocols and our part in them."

"But I'm an officer of the Foundation."

"You're the honorary president. Your signature isn't on any of the binding documents."

"But Justin told me they're to be paying me for my services," she says. "I do the accounts, and …"

Bill frowns. "We'll have to look into that. Anyway, Luna and Dean are in the clear. I can recruit but I can't participate, because of Gringotts."

Andromeda says, "You're recruiting witches and wizards who can cast a stable, corporeal Patronus and who have no connection to the Ministry." She adds, "Or Gringotts. This is a peculiar business…"

Bill smiles and nods.

She remembers the last meeting, and the report that Hermione presented. "It's something to do with Dementors, of course. And Hermione's mixed up in it, isn't she? At very least as research consultant." She adds, "Don't tell me you're going to have to put me under Fidelius before you can tell me."

Bill says, "No, but you have to agree to a local _Obliviate_ in the case you say no."

Andromeda says, "Sounds dangerous."

Bill says, "Well, no more dangerous than the Order of the Phoenix."

She says wryly, "Ah, so what you're taking on is no more dangerous than one Dark Lord and some number of Death Eaters." She pauses a moment, and then asks, "How good are you with _Obliviate_?"

Fleur answers, "I am highly skilled." She adds, "Bill, it is perhaps not prudent to ask her yet, yes?"

Bill nods, and she casts _Muffliato;_ Andromeda, outside the murmurous shield of the spell, sees Bill say something; the air ripples so that she cannot read his lips.

Luna, then Dean, give their assent. There's a grim set to Dean's mouth, and a brightness in Luna's eyes. Whatever this is, it's at least as exciting as _one Dark Lord and some number of Death Eaters._

ooo

The next afternoon in Kingsley's office, she's offered a rather more splendid variety of treats with her tea; it's the season, of course, and the celebratory mood of the Ministry, which reckons it a job well done to finish the year with the forces of the Dark well-vanquished.

More or less vanquished, she thinks, except for the unofficial state of alert around the Yule celebrations and New Year's, and to top it off, New Year's Eve is a full moon so there are the werewolves to consider.

She comes more or less directly to the point. "You've reviewed my conditions." (She catches herself before she says "request," for these are the basic conditions, and not negotiable.)

Kingsley nods. "I think we can grant those." He says, "But you're here on another errand."

"Quite related to the matter, actually," she says. "My sister has requested that I be present when her son receives the indictment. I don't have the date. Can this be arranged?"

Kingsley looks at her.

"If I'm going to take on this part with him, then I'd best be started. Wouldn't you agree?"

He says, "I rather meant that you'd have responsibility for him after the trial."

"If you grant my conditions, then the job begins as soon as I have in hand what I want. You know perfectly well it's not practical to hand him over to me with no introduction. He has no reason to trust me." She says, "It will be on your desk eventually in any case."

She says, "And how far am I standing surety for him? What happens to me if he violates his parole?" She adds, "I don't intend to go to Azkaban in his place. I don't touch this until _all of the conditions_ are spelled out."

Kingsley sighs. "It will be done, Andromeda, and you can have it reviewed by whatever third parties you choose." He rubs his forehead with the base of his palm, and adds, "Even if we weren't friends for decades, it's bad luck to swindle your allies."

She ignores that, because the only rejoinder is that she's not sure if he's friend or ally at this point, given the minor and major misdirections. She says, "You know the date for the indictments, so you decide if it's better for the boy to visit with his uncle's relatives before or after they're delivered." It feels good, actually, to be _dictating terms_.

Kingsley says, "I have the date. It hasn't been released to the general public, but given that you're family to the defendant… but it's not to be told to your sister or to anyone else." Andromeda nods, waiting for the flick of the wand that will guarantee her silence.

**Author's note:** Posting frequency for this story will be going to once a week or once every week and a half, to allow for interference from so-called Real Life..


	33. Chapter 33

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

**Author's note:** Thank you, dear readers, for your patience as I navigated the stormy seas of Real Life (all too slowly) to bring you this latest chapter.

ooo

Night, and there's a knocking on the window. At first it's quiet, just a tap, indistinguishable from the ticking of sleet. Then it grows somewhat louder, and Andromeda looks up to see the white knuckles coming out of gloom to rap on the glass, then fade back into the fog or mist or snow… whatever that obscurity on the other side of her own pale reflection, light in darkness.

Then a face presses against the glass, and a voice rasps: "Let me in, mum. Let me in. I'm not dead; they buried me alive."

Andromeda knows better than to listen to the voices of the dead when they say things like that. She knows that even in dream, and so she turns her back on the window, and flees to the next room… where the window is broken and the wind howls in, and the cheerful chintz curtains have gone to shredded black wraiths of gauze, like the rotten rigging of a ghost ship. Something already has entered that room; the bed is covered in trampled snow. Her heart stops at the footsteps behind her.

Tonks approaches, white-faced and triumphant, holding a teacup… and the cup is full of spiders, crawling over each other and spilling over the edge, onto the saucer.

Andromeda remembers the tale that Ron told about his brother turning his teddy bear into a gigantic spider.

Tonks is wearing the red robes she seldom wore in life; it's only in her graduation photo that she's rigged out in the formal uniform. In life, in work, she mostly was herself: in her own clothes.

This is not her.

And the face—the face shifts, as in front of the mirror when Tonks was fourteen and trying on the forbidden faces of the family she'd just discovered in those albums: Regulus and Bellatrix and then there's a flash as her hair goes blonde, the color of sunlight, as in her portrait from Auror graduation.

Through all its changes, it's the family face: pointed chin and sharp cheekbones and now pale, pale eyes—Andromeda isn't sure if the face before her is Cissy or Draco, for it flashes by too quickly—and now it melts away to bare bone where the light hits it and hollow darkness where the eyes aren't.

The hollow bones… this is a bone flute on which play the winds of the underworld. The voice gives it away, and the spiders. The hand holding that tea cup is gone to bone, yet surprisingly delicate: _the family bones,_ she thinks.

Her dead daughter, or the messenger from the underworld, extends the cup full of spiders (they're crawling all over her hands, over the red robes) and says, "Avenge me."

Andromeda wakes bolt upright in the predawn darkness with her heart racing, as if that reproachful figure still stood there, as if snowbound darkness yawned on the other side of the broken window… which is whole. The room is warm, and she's been dreaming.

Nonetheless, the dream knows something she doesn't. As she wakes, her wand is in her hand. She remembers the lessons, of course: deportment, dancing and dueling, the proper accomplishments of a Pureblood witch of long lineage and honorable antecedents.

The murdered dead always come back bearing the weapon, don't they? Even if the weapon is a teacup. No, Molly didn't poison Tonks, not unto death, but that fateful dose of forced passion may have unhinged her; certainly her frantic flight to Remus at the Battle of Hogwarts was not the instinct either of a trained Auror or a mother.

And is she so sure it's Molly?

Yes. She's quite sure. In her daughter's case, if not in Ginny's, for in the latter case the symptoms stood out like raw bone: no mistaking that injury for something else. It looks like lack of skill, or mocking crudity that thumbs its nose and means to be detected.

It's too early, both in the day and in the season; formal dueling is forbidden during Yule (not that this prevents less premeditated violence). Nonetheless, all the dueling manuals praise the prepared mind, and nothing in the customs of the season forbids an interview with a prospective second.

ooo

To her surprise, when she puts her head in the flames of the Floo to summon Augusta Longbottom, it's her grandson in the kitchen rather than the elf. He's standing at the ancient stove making tea, Muggle-fashion; Hermione stands next to him, rosy-cheeked and windblown and cheerful. The two of them, apparently, have just returned from a walk.

He invites her to step through if she likes; his Gran is seeing an unexpected early-morning visitor just now, though he's sure they'll be finished with their conference directly.

Meanwhile, there will be tea shortly; would she care for a cup?

As soon as she steps through the flames and stands in the cavernous kitchen, she feels the sense of constraint. Hermione is cheerful and sensible and brisk as always, bustling about and handing down cups and saucers; Neville breaks into a huge and delighted smile every time he looks at her. Once or twice, the smile is accompanied by a blush, which might be mistaken for the rosiness of exertion except that he's doing nothing more strenuous than anxiously awaiting the whistle of the tea-kettle.

The two of them are both possessed by the clumsiness for which Neville was once notorious. They bump into each other, brush hands, drop things. One of Augusta's ancient porcelain tea cups nearly shatters; Hermione deftly catches it, and then places it in Neville's hand, briefly brushing her fingers over his wrist and palm.

The thick awkward feeling in the room is sexual attraction; Andromeda watches in fascination as Hermione's fingers trace the outline of Neville's wrist, finding the bones under the surface, tracing the flesh of the thumb pad, even as all she's doing is placing a fragile teacup in his upturned palm. Those fingers are thinking of bone, of muscle, of the soul that animates them, and as well of the decorum that must be observed in the presence of an observer.

Andromeda excuses herself, and finds her way to the hall.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Neville put the tea cup down on the massive oak table, and Hermione take his hand and kiss the inside of his wrist.

The house is dark and quiet, and then she hears the voices, and just enough of what they are saying, to find it prudent to retire, but finds herself momentarily confused. The elf takes shape out of the stony morning gloom, and escorts her to the drawing-room where she may await a more opportune time to meet with the mistress of Longbottom House.

ooo

The voice she overheard was Augusta at her dryest, "There's a difference between being in love with history and with _historical persons_."

The answering voice she can't quite place, for all it's familiar. "I'm told you gave your grandson some exemplary advice: to pursue his heart's desire, and not one whit less."

"You're not my grandson, and I don't think you're old enough to know your heart's desire."

"He's younger than I am, and you're confident enough that he knows his own mind."

"He's worn his heart on his sleeve, ever since he was a wee lad."

Cup rattles against saucer as the unknown visitor accepts tea. The considering silence no doubt corresponds to a first polite sip, and then Augusta's guest says, "I'm not interested in the money, you know." He pauses. "I'll formally renounce all claims, if you like. I'm not interested in displacing Neville." There's a rustle of parchment. "I've drawn up a draft version."

"Very romantic you are, lad." There's a dry chuckle.

"We may as well set aside the obvious objections."

"Eighty years. I'd like to see you set that aside."

"Neville said your objection was that I was Ministry. That can't be helped, now, but I hope I've done something to redeem myself."

"I'll be having a word with him." (Andromeda does not think it will be a pleasant one.)

"He said he had no objection. In fact, he said you ought to have a bit of fun."

"And you're volunteering, are you? Here I thought it was Neville I'd be defending from the flibbertigibbets and the fortune-hunters."

A rather stiff, cold tone, "I wouldn't think I'd be either of those."

"You should find someone more your own age."

The other says, "The only acceptable candidate would be Hermione Granger, and there are two points against her: she's spoken for and she's not you." After a long silence, he adds, "In any case, appearances are deceiving. I'm an old man already, if you believe my brothers."

ooo

Augusta the redoubtable has a suitor, it would seem, and if Andromeda didn't mistake that firm, clear, determined voice, she now has a clue as to the identity of Percy Weasley's mysterious older woman.

Very much older, she would say.

Augusta is a widow like herself, though not quite as recent; it's been ten years since Frank Senior died after a long illness, at the relatively early age of ninety-four. In Muggle years, as she'd explained to Ted, that's a hale fifty or sixty. The Chattox and Longbottom lines are both long-lived, but it's rather suspected that a broken heart was some part of it; Frank Junior was the apple of this father's eye, and Frank Senior been rather more involved in the rearing of his children than his redoubtable spouse.

Andromeda remembers the occasional glimpses of big Frank Longbottom and his tiny grandson, who nonetheless looked as much like him as like his round-faced mother. The couples in that family are paired as she and Ted were: sleepy, round-faced, slow-moving men and hawklike, darting women-or in the case of Frank Jr. and Alice, the other way round.

She wonders if it was after the death of his grandfather that Neville began to reckon himself an orphan.

The family portraits look down at her and murmur among themselves about the family resemblance to the other Blacks they've known. That always makes her feel like a five-year-old girl striving to be seen and not heard (and barely seen, if she can manage it) in the presence of ancient relatives.

Then there's a friendly, cheerful "Hullo, Andromeda!" from the girl in the Sargent portrait. Emily the Quidditch player, Beater if she recalls aright.

"Why, hello, Emily. You're looking well."

"I suppose I am," she says. "So you're the aunt of the little Malfoy, are you?"

Andromeda nods. Emily laughs in her roguish contralto and says, "So he's a bit young to have been conceived in the common room, eh?"

(Emily's double at Hogwarts, in the Slytherin common room, isn't quite far enough from the most comfortable of the divans. Of course, Cissy and Lucius wouldn't have been particularly wary of the Quidditch team portrait at the gloomy end of the common room, and in any case they were legally betrothed.)

"No," Andromeda says.

"So the other one would have been a Squib," Emily says, with an adolescent's ruthlessness pleasure in plain speaking. She adds, "Pureblood barbarians."

(The Blacks married into the Longbottom line, and vice versa, a few times, but never into the Chattox line. There was a reason for that.)

"I wouldn't have said that to Lucius if I were you," Androemda says.

"Who says I said it to him?" Emily smiles. "So how do you like what the young folks are getting up to?"

(Of course, portrait-Emily is really as old as her original, which is to say over a century, for all her look of a teenage Quidditch hoyden.)

"The boy's living up to his Gran, all right," Emily says, with some complacency, "though the girl's a Muggle-born, and not a full Muggle." She smirks. "It's been dull here far too long, though not for want of some of us trying." She adds, "Now the funny bit is that the little Malfoy has his eye on her too. Much good it will do him, though." The sneer is showing teeth now and looking distinctly carnivorous. "I remember him bragging on his father Muggle-baiting at the Quidditch World Cup. Nasty bit of work."

"Lucius or his son?"

"Oh, both of them. Is it true that he's in Azkaban?"

"No, he was—twice—but now he's on house arrest."

Emily says, "That line won't come to an end any too soon for me."

It isn't only the Blacks who are bloody-minded, but Andromeda can't really blame Emily Chattox for her grudge. It's been eighty-seven years since Apollonius Paracelsus Malfoy sent an anonymous letter to Emily's parents telling them about her virtual engagement to the first Frank, a Muggle mill-worker from Accrington. That denunciation, as everyone knows, led to an ugly family scene, Emily's elopement with Frank, and seventeen years of not entirely voluntary exile from her family and from the wizarding world.

Were it not for that exile, little Emily might not have died of the Spanish flu (though it's said that St. Mungo's did have rather a time of it with all the cases), and … well, the witch in the next room might still be calling herself Emily rather than Augusta.

In any case, Emily was the last of the Chattox line (in the male or female descent) to Sort into Slytherin House. The legend is that she cast a curse of the other kind on that House, and on the House of Malfoy… the sort of curse that the wizards and Muggles have in common, that calls down the Fates and the Furies, and grinds as slowly as the very mills of God.

Andromeda smiles to herself, and recalls that aloud to Emily.

Over the centuries, the Chattoxes had Sorted without distinction into all four houses; Emily's mother Sophonisba and her three sisters had represented all four; Sophonisba was the Slytherin, of course; Sophia the Quidditch-mad Ravenclaw, Augusta the Gryffindor and Emily the Hufflepuff.

It's her aunt Sophia that Emily remembers with fondness, Sophia who gifted her with her first toy broom at age two, and cheered her on at House games even if the whole of the Ravenclaw section glared at her for it, since even then it was traditional for the Ravenclaws to back Gryffindor against Slytherin.

"And how is Sophia's granddaughter?" (That would be Luna Lovegood.)

Andromeda tells her about Luna's painting career and her possible apprenticeship to Ollivander as a wandmaker. Emily says that she'd heard about the painting from the Muggle-born girl, little Neville's sweetheart. Surpassingly odd, though not unexpected from Sophia's line.

"It must be the French blood," she says. "They say she's an Impressionist. We'll see if the wizarding world is ready for _that_. My wager would be they might… after all, it's been over a hundred years."

"Wizards don't like to commit to anything without thinking it over," Andromeda concurs, and the two of them have a laugh.

ooo

At length, she's sitting in Augusta Longbottom's front room sipping tea; there's walnut cake, as well, and Andromeda reflects once more that everything at Longbottom House is done in the old style; the food is immaculately crafted and the house elf silent and otherworldly, not clownishly servile after the fashion of Aunt Walburga's Kreacher or Cissy's Dobby. Augusta and the elf (whose name she does not know) seem to treat each other as Powers occupying the same territory. Augusta is supplied with excellent fare, silently and invisibly summoned, on the condition that she not encroach on the elf's prerogatives.

She presents her petition very simply. "I may need a second for a duel. Would you be willing?"

Augusta looks at her shrewdly. "It would depend, of course. Is it one of those spineless buggers at the Ministry?"

Andromeda shakes her head. "It's rather disgraceful, actually …" She stalls for time, taking a sip of tea. "I think it may be Molly Weasley." That's the first she's said it aloud, though she more than acknowledged it, nodding as Percy unfolded his tale the other day.

Augusta says, "Are you quite sure?"

"Mostly." She tells the tale that she had at second hand, from Dean and Luna, about Hermione and the weather-working, and then the exchange between Hermione and Molly after.

Augusta smiles broadly. "That lass is a real Fury." (There's not a breath of disapproval in that statement.) She adds, "I wouldn't put it past Molly Prewett to overreach herself, especially in a family matter. Though I don't like to believe she'd dose her own daughter."

Augusta says, "It's the matter of my own daughter that's the affair of honor. The rest isn't proven. I'll leave that to Harry and Percy and Hermione."

"After Yule, then."

"I'll be writing the challenge after New Year's. I have an invitation for that night."

ooo

New Year's Eve at Eddie's pub turns out to be a rather rowdy affair. There is the singing, and then there's the darts game: after an ale or two, Andromeda consents to let her niece Audrey teach her how to play.

Audrey demonstrates, while holding Teddy on one hip, and then comments on Andromeda's progress, while amusing him. The audience grows, of course; there are two or three of the regulars who appear to have decided that she's rather fanciable—or at least that's the tenor of their remarks, what she can make out through the double barrier of Muggle slang and background noise. It's not something she's used to, in the small and well-ordered wizarding world. No wizard of respectable standing would make such overtures, verbal or otherwise, to the widow of Ted Tonks and the mother of Dora the war hero; even to those who never renounced her as a blood traitor, she's socially out of reach, as the surviving remnant of the three beautiful daughters of the House of Black.

It must be the ale, because she laughs along, and in any case, Eddie's hovering nearby so it's not going to go further than flirtation. Even if it did, she's heavily armed, and the Aurors are quite busy on New Year's Eve, with the Death Eater alert and the full-moon werewolf patrol. It's highly unlikely that a small incident of magic at a Muggle pub would find its way into their queue.

Audrey is amused and scandalized in equal parts, because the men who are paying court to her widowed aunt—by way of cheering her on as she plays a rather wobbly game of darts, and offering to buy her drinks to improve her aim—are fully twenty years her junior.

Andromeda smirks, thinking about how Bellatrix Black Lestrange is no doubt turning over in her grave at her younger sister flirting with Muggles, playing darts, and drinking ale in a London pub. Not to mention what Aunt Walburga would have had to say on the subject …

At the midnight hour, she raises a glass to Sirius, Ted, Dora and Remus, and hopes that the drinks in Valhalla are quite as good as the ones in Eddie's pub.

"To the memory of Tom Riddle," Eddie proposes, "may the sodding bastard stay dead this time."

That's the last they speak of the war, until very much later.

It isn't until long after the midnight hour, after the pub has closed and Andromeda, by way of visiting gift, has magically put it in order in the twinkling of the eye and a few flicks of the wand—to Eddie's awed approval, as Ted did that too, but never so swiftly or so well—that the family has a quiet sit-down.

By then, the ale has worn off, and Teddy has been put to bed; with the werewolf curfew, it's best not to be abroad until moonset, which is to say past dawn. Andromeda still feels as cheerful as at midnight, when she'd not quite successfully dodged a kiss on the cheek from one of the young men who had been hovering about her.

After a bit of conversation about this and that, life since the war and business at the pub (which is booming), Eddie's wife Jeanette takes out a file folder of _Daily Prophet _clippings.

"Dora and Ted arranged it," she says. "They thought it would help if we knew what was happening."

Somehow, the Tonks family's subscription to the _Prophet_ continued through the fall of the Ministry, without ever being traced to the fugitive brother. There it all sits, playing out in living pictures above the acid prose of Rita Skeeter and her minions: the tabloid-trash biography of Dumbledore, the Muggle-born Registration Committee, the wanted-poster photographs of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, the various press releases about the glorious new state of affairs in wizarding Britain, and the articles that hint otherwise, some from the Quidditch pages (notably, the teams that have suspended play because of the loss of their Muggle-born talent).

The prose changes tone rather abruptly with the Battle of Hogwarts. The special edition that came out three days after the battle has snippets of text, but largely it's a photo essay: a haggard Minerva McGonagall (thirty-six hours without sleep at that point) supervising the interment of the fallen and giving an interview about the casualty counts; Neville Longbottom eating breakfast at the table in the Great Hall with the Sword of Gryffindor by his plate; Harry Potter, looking years older than seventeen, standing by the tomb of Dumbledore with his arm around Ginny Weasley, with the damage to the castle plain in the background; Madam Rosmerta and Aberforth Dumbledore distributing bottles of butterbeer and firewhiskey to the reveling victors.

Then there's the other side of the story: a starkly lit photograph of the shrunken and unmoving corpse of Tom Riddle, oddly small in its swath of black robes; Molly Weasley tearfully hugging her son George, with the fallen body of Bellatrix Lestrange lying sprawled in the foreground; the Aurors standing by as Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy say goodbye to their son.

Andromeda stares at the clippings: she's holding in her hands a thorough and premeditated violation of the Statute of Secrecy.

Jeanette points to the last photograph. Gorgeously lit in morning light like a parable of resurrection, Harry Potter extends his hand to a disheveled and sneering Draco Malfoy; behind them, the wreckage in the Great Hall has been put partially to rights. The picture must have been taken in the late morning of the second of May. The caption explains that the two boys had been fierce Quidditch rivals as well as political adversaries, and in the picture Harry is returning to Draco the wand that he used to defend himself in the final duel.

"So that's your nephew," Jeanette says, "the blond one."

Andromeda nods, and adds that Harry, the hero of the piece, is Teddy's godfather.

Jeanette says that they'll definitely have to invite Harry as well.

Andromeda suggests they might make that a separate invitation. Draco and Harry are still not over-fond of each other.

Audrey leans on the table and remarks that Draco looks quite the little toff, even after being dragged backward through a briar patch. She cocks her head speculatively at her cousin's likeness, and adds that he might be fanciable if he could lose the sneer.

Jeanette says, "Audrey, he's your _cousin._"

Audrey says that strictly speaking, he's not blood kin, but in any case she doesn't chase boys who aren't willing to be caught (this with a dimpled smirk that reminds her more than a little of Tonks).

Jeanette sighs with the resigned exasperation of a mother saddled with a daughter who's determined to shock one and all, starting with mum.

Andromeda meets her eye and nods in sympathy. Some things breed true: Tonks and Audrey always got on well together, since Tonks was only too pleased to play the bad example to her younger cousin.

Eddie says he expects Audrey not to tease her cousin too much, because the lad will have had a hard time of it.

Audrey says, "I'll be nice to him, but he'd better not hex me." And then, looking rather sad, "I miss cousin Dora."

Eddie pats his daughter on the shoulder, and Jeanette says, "We all miss her, don't we?"

Andromeda isn't ashamed of her tears this time.

ooo

They retire four hours before sunrise, and Andromeda drops off to sleep on the little daybed in Eddie's guest room, thinking about the wording of her challenge to Molly Weasley, the strange business of Percy Weasley courting Augusta Longbottom, and the New Year's Eve ball at the Ministry. Kingsley will have managed that with aplomb, of course … and Bill, or was it Ron, will have been on duty at St. Mungo's for the full-moon werewolf watch for the Remus Lupin Foundation. If all is not right with the world, at least the crisis is well-ordered, for people of good will have it well in hand.

It's a dream, of course, a continuation of that thought, that summons Ron Weasley's voice, but it's the blue-grey light of winter dawn, and the glow of a canine Patronus, that opens her eyes. The voice resolves out of dream, "Justin said you should come to St. Mungo's. There's been a werewolf attack, and the victim's a Muggle."


	34. Chapter 34

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

At the summons to St. Mungo's, Andromeda gathers her cloak, bundling it over the Muggle clothes that she wore for the visit to Eddie's, and looks up to see Audrey in dressing gown and pyjamas, rubbing her eyes and looking sleepy. "I heard voices," she said.

Andromeda pulls herself together and says in a crisp sensible voice, "I was summoned. There's been an emergency, on our side of the border."

Audrey is quite awake now. "Death Eaters?"

"No. Official business." She smiles, taking Audrey's hand. "Don't worry. I'll be back in a few hours. Is Teddy still asleep?"

Audrey nods. "I'll see to him. Don't _you_ worry."

Wand in hand, she turns to Apparate, unable to shake the sense of impoliteness—she'd never do this in a wizarding home—in spite of the necessity for swift and inconspicuous departure.

ooo

Ron Weasley greets her as soon as she walks into the reception area for the Dangerous Creatures ward. "Hermione brought him in," he says, and shudders a little. "She had on Muggle clothes, and blood all over them, and she didn't even notice." He shakes his head. "I'm not making sense, I'm sorry."

Andromeda says, "Is there anything I can do now?"

"Justin called you because he thought you might be able to help when the victim wakes up."

They're walking into the ward, where Justin meets them and tells her that it's the very scenario that they've feared: a Muggle attacked in central London. Seven werewolves—a true pack—and the victim would have died, had it not been for the fact that the woman with whom he'd stepped outside the New Year's Eve party to have a tiff was Hermione Granger.

Justin adds, with unmistakable triumph, that Hermione stunned and bound the werewolves, and then the Aurors brought all seven of them to St. Mungo's; there was a nearly simultaneous attack in Manchester, where the Aurors captured a band of twelve … The new regime is working marvelously; Professor Slughorn has begun the planning of the Wolfsbane Potion regime, and they're calling for volunteers to help with the brewing next full moon. Of course, that won't do as a long-term solution, since there are now nineteen adolescent werewolves to be followed, but it's an altogether promising start.

Andromeda nods, until she notices Ron standing in the doorway, looking none too steady. He's still wearing his trainee Auror robes, whose scarlet facings are blotched with darker red—no doubt some of the blood—

He says, "She kept saying over and over again that it was her fault, that if she'd acted faster, he wouldn't have been bitten."

"Nonsense," Justin says sharply. "She was in Muggle London, playing the part of a Muggle. And it was a mass attack; it's a miracle she got out of it without being bitten herself." He frowns. "He got savaged—almost lost his arm."

Andromeda frowns. "He…?"

"The Muggle." Now it's Justin who looks none too well. "I know him, from _before._ Some people are just unlucky." He says, "His brother was a year ahead of my cousin at Eton. He recognized me directly as she brought him in."

Andromeda looks at Justin and Ron. "Sit down, the both of you." Justin obeys. "Now they're looking after him?"

Justin nods. "He's just got out of surgery—or whatever they call it this side of the border—and he's under. Rather thoroughly. Healer Smethwyck says that they were able to save the arm. Hermione did a rather nice field repair on the shoulder joint. They had to take it all apart in the surgery, of course…" In spite of his detached, sensible tone, he's gone rather greenish.

"I think you should sit quiet for a bit. No, _sit down,_" she says to Ron, "and we'll talk about this sensibly." Ron obeys, and Justin looks at her, grateful to relinquish the pretense of having it all under control. She turns to Ron and flicks her wand to Scourgify the blood from his robes. He looks up and blinks. "Now, Ron, where's Hermione?"

"She stayed for a bit, while they were looking at what they'd have to do to repair the arm, because of the cursed wounds," he says, looking a bit faint at the recollection. "She talked to him to keep him calm." He shakes his head. "She was explaining the rules of Quidditch and listing the possible fouls, and agreeing with him that Draco Malfoy is a right git." He adds with a weak smile, "He's the bloke from the _Prophet_ picture. Apparently he thinks that Hermione ought to be dating him instead of 'that arty little ponce with the tattoo.' Took me forever to realize he was talking about Malfoy."

"Tattoo?" She doesn't like the sounds of that.

"Stupid Malfoy was flashing the Dark Mark at him—can you imagine anything more _idiotic._ Right there in Muggle London, if you please. It's a good thing Rita and her chums didn't get that on camera, or they would have had Hermione and Neville down for Death Eaters. You know, guilt by association."

Andromeda doesn't remind him that he was believing Rita's article and all that it implied, the last time. The good sense he's talking must have been inculcated by someone else, possibly Lavender.

"Hermione said she was adding it to her agenda to take Malfoy's head off at nearest convenience, though she wasn't sure it would register, because that wasn't what he was using to think." Ron adds, with not entire contriteness, "Sorry, I know he's your nephew."

Andromeda says, "That doesn't mean he isn't an idiot." She squares her shoulders and says, "Even if his name were Black, it still wouldn't rule out congenital impulsiveness. He's unfortunate enough to have it from both sides of the family. Now this business about the Dark Mark…"

"In the café, when the _Daily Prophet_ got him and Hermione and Neville and Malfoy," Ron says. "The business just now was a New Year's party. And Malfoy wasn't there. They just had an argument about him, Hermione and this Nigel bloke."

Justin clears his throat. "Well, that's the next thing. Nigel. Nigel _Black_." He emphasizes the surname. "The …er, patient, might be kin of yours." He says, "Smethwyck and I reviewed the family tree, including the Squib branches, and Black recognizes Grimmauld Place, though he's sure the title is in error, because there is no Number Twelve."

"Is your mother aware of this?" Andromeda can think of no one she'd rather have on the job just now than the eminently sensible Mrs. Finch-Fletchley, rather than her somewhat peckish son, who seems to be suppressing the urge to vomit.

Justin shakes his head. "She's in Paris just now with my father, on holiday." He says, "Of course, I could call her back if you think it would help."

Andromeda frowns. "Well, it's a diplomatic problem, a major one. There's the Statute of Secrecy, and I gather that this young man is rather well-connected."

Justin says, "We're only very lucky that it's New Year's Day. No one is going to remark particularly if he's missing for twenty-four hours or so around New Year's."

Ron says, "Hermione said it was fairly bad-a Statute of Secrecy _disaster_. There were cameras. She said she's pretty sure that they got her and the werewolves, and then the Auror who destroyed the camera." Andromeda sighs; the standard in the Auror corps must be low indeed … Ron adds, "I know what you're going to say, and it's worse than that. He tried to _Obliviate_ it before he finally hit it with a _Reducto._"

Andromeda suppresses the urge to giggle, then asks, "So you were with the Aurors who answered the call?"

"Yes, but I'm just the trainee. Hermione gave them a proper talking-to, and told them she'd have their heads if they so much as touched this Nigel bloke. I think I know why there are no Muggle werewolves." He gathers himself visibly, and says, "She said that destroying the camera was just going to call attention to whatever it captured… and _that _isn't in the camera." He frowns. "I wish they'd taught us _useful_ stuff about Muggles."

Andromeda shrugs. Ted had taken Muggle Studies out of curiosity, and dropped it after the first year because he said that all he'd learned was that wizards had it all wrong, and their notions of Muggle technology were at least a generation out of date.

She says to Justin, "It seems we have something rather under twenty-four hours. I think it would be prudent for you to call your mother back from Paris, and take counsel with Healers Smethwyck and Derwent."

Ron says, "Hermione had one more thing to say before she left."

Andromeda doesn't so much raise an eyebrow as feel it raise itself.

"She said that she knew that the Aurors had been killing Muggles who'd been bitten by werewolves. Someone else in the Ministry already told her. And if anything happened to Nigel Black, she would go to the appropriate authorities herself. On _both_ sides of the border."

Andromeda says, "Then I think you should make sure you have someone else here when Justin goes to get his mother. Someone who's _not_ in the Auror corps. I have to go collect Teddy and get him settled." She thinks about her own bed at Grimmauld Place, which is feeling very inviting now. She knows that she's not at her best just now, but the emergency requires her. "In fact, I think that the more of us that know about this situation, the safer we'll be."

Ron says, "I'll get Bill and Fleur."

"We'll convene the whole committee at one o'clock, then. Then we'll decide what we're going to say to Kingsley when we talk to him." Ron nods, and gulps, then casts his Patronus and dispatches it to Shell Cottage. It's only then that she notices the circles under his eyes, which stand out like bruises against his fair complexion.

Apparently, she's not the only one who's going to be short of sleep this New Year's Day.

ooo

By the time she finds her way back to Eddie's, it is nearly ten o'clock. Audrey isn't particularly fussed by the delay; nonetheless, Andromeda apologizes for the unexpected emergency.

Audrey says that she could tell that it was serious, from the speed with which Andromeda had departed. A little while after she left, Teddy woke up and showed interest in what she was eating, so she gave him some… she hopes that it was all right. It was just oatmeal. Oh yes, and there is an owl waiting for her.

Andromeda frowns, until she sees the way that the letter is addressed: _To Andromeda Tonks, wherever she is._

She feeds the owl, which looks at her reproachfully: it's one of Augusta's birds, which tells her that it's either Augusta, or more likely Draco.

As indeed it is, and the letter really isn't worth the bird's trouble. He needs advice … on an apology, but he really doesn't want to talk about it in a letter. Would she be able to come to Longbottom House… as soon as possible?

Teddy reminds her that breakfast was a long time ago, and nuzzles against her to be fed. Absently she nurses him, while considering the curl of parchment in her hand. "Oh, very well," she says at length, scribbles her reply on the back of the letter, re-attaches it, and gives the owl a second treat, which it takes as no more than its due.

There's not going to be any rest for her today, it does seem, so she's going directly to Longbottom House, Teddy in tow. Hopefully, she can conclude her business with Draco in the space of three hours, before the meeting of the officers of the Remus Lupin Foundation at one o'clock.

Audrey asks if she'll be staying to lunch. Unfortunately not, she says, though they'll talk about a return visit soon.

"It's him, isn't it?" Audrey says. Andromeda looks at her, frowning, and she clarifies, "My new cousin. He's trouble, isn't he?"

"Well, yes, but he's not the only trouble at the moment."

ooo

Luckily, Augusta Longbottom has always been an early riser, the more so in her late middle age; as one crosses the century mark, one needs rather less sleep.

Andromeda is invited to partake of an early New Year's luncheon; the young persons have slept late, Augusta says, and it's breakfast for them. It's a curious assembly: Augusta at the head of the table, Neville at her right hand and Draco at her left, as if they were the sons of the house, and Hermione next to Neville. Augusta indicates with a nod that she should take the foot of the table. The meal proceeds in silence; Neville and Hermione are sitting a little closer than before, if she reads it right, and Draco flushes faint pink every time he looks at them, although the expression on his face is of a cat well-stuffed with cream, smug and sleepy…

… except when he glances her way, and then his look shifts to something anxious and wary.

After lunch, Neville and Hermione announce their intention to take a walk. Augusta tells them they should mind the weather and the light, and dismisses them with a nod.

Andromeda indicates that she and Draco have some things to discuss, but she's rather urgently constrained to be back to St. Mungo's for one o'clock. Augusta looks from one of them to the other and says, "You'll want some privacy; you can speak in my study."

ooo

Augusta Longbottom's study is a tall narrow room with a roll-top desk that snaps itself closed at their entrance. The door closes behind her, on a vast and uncomfortable silence that's one part winter afternoon to three parts tongue-tied teenage boy. She's resolved not to fill that silence with chatter; after all, it was he who summoned her here.

Draco sits down at the desk, facing away from her, and idly takes up a quill, plays with it, puts it down. Finally he turns in the chair and says, "I want to do this before the indictments are issued." She looks at him. "I'm not stupid, and I read the _Prophet_. They're coming out right after the New Year. So that's today I have." He looks at the hand holding the quill, as if it did not belong to him. Finally his mouth twists in an expression of sour contempt, and he adds, "I don't want them to think I'm begging for my life. Because I'm not. If I die, I die…" He sits even straighter than the stiff chair requires, and says, "Or more likely, I'll just go mad and not know the difference."

She makes her voice as gentle as she can in spite of the vision of the warmth of the covers on that guest bed at Grimmauld Place, and the thought of the crisis picking up momentum on the other side of the border. "How may I help you?"

Draco says, "The letters." He adds in a low voice, "There are rather a lot of them." He has a list, which to her surprise he recites: "Ron Weasley. Katie Bell. Bill Weasley…" Saying the names aloud, he squares his shoulders. "I thought I should start with the ones I hurt without meaning to…"

She stands and gestures for him to sit at the desk. "We'll talk about it, and then you can write when you know what you want to say."

He takes hold of the quill and parchment as if he were getting ready to sign his own death warrant.

She puts a gentle hand on his shoulder, and oddly enough he relaxes into it. Except for a handshake or two, it's the first time she's touched her sister's child. She feels the bony projection of the clavicle, and the ridge of the shoulder-blade. The fine hair hanging loose over his shoulders feels like a baby's.

"It's all right," she says. "We can talk first, then you can write."

He says, "I only have the one chance."

She looks at the clock and banishes thoughts of that warm bed, as Teddy dozes against her shoulder. "Until he wakes up, or until one o'clock," she says.

"And then you'll leave?"

"At one o'clock I have to leave. If he wakes up before then, you'll have to help me amuse him."

He says, "My mother is going to have a child." A long pause, as those pale grey eyes scan her face for something. "You knew. You didn't tell me." He looks at Teddy. "I won't know her, probably. I'll be in prison by the time she's born."

She says, "Where would you like to begin?"

Draco sits straight at the desk, and his fingers tighten on the quill. "Bill Weasley. His face... and whatever else is ruined." There's a long pause, and he says, "I didn't know that they brought Greyback. And I …" A very long pause, during which that thin back is turned to her, and then he says, "I'm to blame even though I had no say over that part. Because I'm the one who got them in, after all."

He doesn't say _the Death Eaters_ nor does he say it was the defenses of the school that he'd breached, but everyone knows the story now, even though it's supposedly secret.

He says, "I know I was supposed to hate the Weasleys, but really it was only the one. Well, aside from the infernal twins, and the sister, because that Bat Bogey Hex was appalling." He looks down. "They took everything. I was supposed to make friends with Potter… my father sent me off with instructions to do just that, and there was Ron Weasley in the compartment first, and he came out making remarks about my father… and Potter decided I was the _wrong sort…_" Andromeda can tell that it's a picture he's run over and over in his head, because his father had sent him off with instructions and he had failed.

She says, "You know what you want to say. It's just hard to say it." She adds, with cheerfulness that's patently false and what's more, feels brutal, "But we don't have much time, either of us."

He nods, and dips the quill into the inkwell. "It's only… I couldn't have done other than I did. Even if I'd had it to do over, it would still turn out the same."

"But you feel badly about the consequences." He nods, looking sadder and more like a child than she's ever seen him. "Then say that. Say that you are sorry for what happened to them because of what you did. We make enough of a mess of things on the first try. If the fates gave us the chance to do it over, we might make a worse mess."

Oddly enough, this grim sentiment seems to cheer him. He hunches over his parchment and writes furiously, without stopping, and the silence closes in again; somewhere in the room, a clock is ticking, as the quill scratches against parchment.

ooo


	35. Chapter 35

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

It's coming on to one o'clock as Draco finishes the last of his letters, affixes his seal, and consigns the first of them—the missive to Bill Weasley—to Augusta's owl.

Standing in the Owlery at Longbottom House, his cloak wrapped about him in the chilly fog that blows through the cupola, he looks at her and says, "Thank you."

His face looks pale and solemn and very young, and less like his father than she could have imagined. Its expression reminds her of Tonks, in her very rare moments of repose; there's a sweet candor that is tremendously moving, the more so as Draco has apparently spent most of his life trying to become an imitation of his father.

Impulsively she kisses him on the forehead, as if he were a much younger child than he is, and says that she's proud of him, that there are grown men who couldn't manage what he has just done. (_Your father, for one_, she thinks, but does not say.)

He looks at her with those pale eyes, that gather the diffuse light of the foggy winter afternoon, and there's a moment in which she glimpses not only her daughter resurrected but a bit of Regulus too… on the very rare occasions that he was merely a child, and not the standard-bearer of the Noble and Most Ancient House.

They descend the winding stairs. "You'll be back?" he asks, as they reach the foot.

"I don't know if that will be tonight," she says. "The meeting might run rather late. But in any case I will be back. Your cousins have invited you to visit."

He frowns.

"My late husband's people," she says. "They want to make your acquaintance." She adds, "New Year's was rather too soon; the Minister would have had to approve it, and there weren't enough Aurors." What she doesn't add, is the very specific requirements that make them even more short-handed: they need an Auror or Aurors who not only can pass in Muggle London, but who do not bear too strong a grudge against the House of Malfoy.

Given what the insiders know about her brother-in-law's part in the return of the Dark Lord, that number is vanishingly small. Even those who might have had Pureblood supremacist sympathies have rather shifted with the wind: hence the cult of her dead daughter.

"You've seen a bit of Muggle London," she says, "but that's from the outside. Now you have an invitation. You'll behave yourself creditably, won't you?"

He looks puzzled, rather than disdainful, and nods slowly.

"Now I really must go, but you'll be all right, won't you?"

He says, "Neville will be coming back."

Understood, of course, is that Hermione will not; she'll be accompanying Andromeda to the meeting of the Remus Lupin Foundation.

Indeed, just as she's looking out to the terrace to find a handy spot from which to Apparate, Hermione and Neville troop in, bringing with them the cold sharp smell of snow and cold, and their rosy good cheer. Neville kisses Hermione goodbye, full on the lips, which is rather startling given they're in company, and takes Draco's arm, suggesting that they might have a game of Exploding Snap, or perhaps he might like chess? At any rate, the afternoon can be whiled away…

Andromeda is reminded of an older brother gamely taking responsibility for a younger one, but there's something else as well, because Draco blushes.

ooo

When she arrives at St. Mungo's once more, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley has arrived; she's sitting in the reception area of the Dangerous Creatures ward, wearing plum silk, low-heeled pumps and pearls, and chatting with Healers Smethwyck and Derwent. Bill stands outside the ward, holding his wand inconspicuously at the ready, Auror-fashion; Parvati informs Andromeda that Fleur, Padma and Seamus are standing guard inside, one on each side of the patient's bed.

Apparently they're taking the threat from the Auror corps quite seriously. Ron Weasley has been sent home, because his liaison with the Aurors is strictly unofficial and he might be compromised by his presence at their meeting.

What's unsaid: Ron is more in the position of a spy than a liaison, and as he's not an officer of the Foundation, there is no need to call attention to his affiliation with them. The tone is already shaping up to something more appropriate to wartime; their gathering already resembles those of the Order of the Phoenix.

Dean and Luna have arrived by another route; they emerge from the lift along with Hermione, who's still wearing her Muggle walking clothes, with open traditional robes—Hogwarts school robes, with the insignia of Gryffindor—casually thrown over them. Andromeda is not sure that she approves of the new fashion, but it seems to be catching on, especially among those who wish to affiliate themselves with the Order or with Dumbledore's Army after the fact… well, Hermione would not be guilty of that. It's simply the way she dresses. The contrast of her jeans and hiking boots with Mrs. Finch-Fletchley's silk and pearls is rather amusing, though, when Andromeda thinks of her own youthful impressions that there was one form of "Muggle costume" just as there was a single, rather amorphous, form of Muggle.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley rises to meet her, and indicates that it's a pleasure to see in the New Year with her, although the circumstances could certainly be better. She greets Hermione as well, and thanks her for her attention to the case that lately has arisen.

Healer Smethwyck says that the patient is awake now, and has been reassured of his safety.

Hermione looks somewhat sardonic. "I'm not sure I would be _reassured_ under the circumstances."

Smethwyck says that he's been asking after her. Hermione sighs and seems to be suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "Well, I'll visit him, if you insist. But after the meeting."

ooo

The matter is simple, of course: they have a diplomatic crisis. Kingsley Shacklebolt is going to be obliged to convey to the Muggle Minister that one of his own citizens has been turned to a werewolf, and will need to be sequestered in St. Mungo's every full-moon period for the rest of his natural life. The immediate window of peril, of course, is the period from moonrise to moonset on the night of the full moon, but the period of disability is a bit longer; the patient is likely to be short-tempered and impulsive in the few days before full moon, and then exhausted from the transformation for two to three day afterward, even with the mediation of the Wolfsbane Potion.

For a solid citizen of the Muggle world, this means a mysterious disappearance three or four days out of every month, at a minimum, and (as Mrs. Finch-Fletchley points out) not all full moons are on the week-end.

Bill points out that the previous policy of the Auror Department needs to be overturned, if not exposed in its full barbarity.

Hermione adds, somewhat cynically, that the fates seem to have favored them this time, by singling out a wealthy and well-connected victim. The unexplained death of Nigel Black, young banker in the City of London, would have set off a furor that neither Minister would have found pleasant…

Healer Derwent adds that there is another complication, a practical and perhaps a political one, not directly related to the werewolf issue. When the Aurors confronted the werewolf pack in Manchester, they unexpectedly found someone else already combating them… a dirty, scrawny adolescent refugee who nonetheless had both a wand and sufficient presence of mind to have Apparated to a defensible position to deal with twelve attackers. The report makes it clear: some four or five of them had already been Stunned by the time that the Aurors arrived on the scene.

Derwent goes on to say that the girl had been living rough for at least six months, pretending to be a Muggle, as best one could without having any real contacts to depend upon in that world. Which is to say that she had been hiding on _both_ sides of the border, evading several kinds of predator…

When she refused to identify herself, the Aurors took her into custody along with the werewolves.

Hermione has been frowning through the entire recitation, and now she demands, "Where is she? What did they do to her?"

Andromeda is a little startled by Hermione's tone—which is that of a Wizengamot prosecutor—given that Derwent is both a St. Mungo's Senior Healer and Hermione's superior at the Ministry.

Derwent proceeds calmly, as if Hermione's query had been merely conversational, "She is under my care in Spell Damage." She lowers her voice. "Not medically appropriate, of course, but probably the safest place for her, under the circumstances." She adds, "I think we should continue this conversation in a more confidential setting."

ooo

_Confidential_ turns out to mean silence, under the shelter of something rather more sophisticated than _Muffliato_, and within sight of Nigel Black's hospital bed, which has already been cordoned off from the rest of the ward, as much to hide him from the other patients as to veil from his eyes the workings of a magical hospital.

Derwent says that she already had suspicions as to the girl's identity, confirmed when Professor Slughorn answered the summons from Hogwart. He calmed the patient sufficiently for her to be willing to accept from his hand the necessary nutritive Potions and, once she had talked at some length about her experiences, a dose of Dreamless Sleep.

Her testimony about conditions in certain corners of the wizarding world is far from reassuring. The shattered remains of the Death Eaters and the Snatchers are rallying into something that may be a threat—if not immediately, then in the future, by virtue of their fear of the reprisals that have been enacted across the British Isles—and on the other hand, the terror on the part of neutral locals, that sees any stranger as a possible Death Eater.

Her position had been anomalous, as a Half-blood who had connections to some of Voldemort's youthful auxiliaries, but who had assisted Professor Slughorn with the logistics of the evacuation of underage students and the coordination of incoming auxiliaries at the Hog's Head preparatory to the Battle of Hogwarts.

Hermione's frown has deepened. "If she was on the right side in the war, why didn't she come forward?"

Derwent says, "She didn't feel safe. They've already tried to kill her once. In Hogsmeade, six or seven months ago. The day you and Mr. Longbottom rescued Draco Malfoy. She's been on the run since then."

The frown relaxes into an expression of puzzled and then triumphant cogitation. "I know her, then." She says, "Professor Slughorn talked to me about having her noted for a posthumous commendation, only he wasn't sure that she was dead. It's Millicent Bulstrode, isn't it?"

Derwent nods, grimly. "Quite a clever girl, Miss Bulstrode. She's survived at least six lunar cycles on the werewolves' own territory, and hasn't been turned. And she knows quite a bit about their haunts, which might simplify some aspects of our _domestic_ situation with the werewolf problem."

The _foreign _situation, of course, remains complex, which no one needs to state; Fleur stands guard like a rather too good-looking Valkyrie, at the foot of Nigel Black's hospital bed, with Padma on one side of the bed and Seamus on the other, sitting relaxed but alert in chairs alongside the bed, as if they were visitors cheering a rather popular patient… which initial impression of conviviality is contradicted by their drawn wands.

They turn to the matter at hand: what will they demand of Kingsley Shacklebolt, not Andromeda's old friend but the Minister for Magic? And how might they make those demands stick?

It's a Slytherin question, posed in Slytherin terms. Power, and skillful means. All of the eyes in the room go to her. Hermione has her arms folded, and her fingertips tap absently on the opposite elbow: right hand to left elbow, and it's clear she's thinking about her wand, even if it isn't in evidence. Bill Weasley stands guard at the open door of the cordoned-off room, and the set of his back tells her that he's listening intently for the answer. Seamus and Padma look at her, their postures mirror images of each other—not a couple, but warriors united in the same cause—while Parvati cocks her head to one side, echoed by Lavender (who's her true twin). Luna and Dean stand, relaxed and watchful, waiting to hear what she will say.

Snakes travel in a straight line, and Andromeda's eyes meet those of Boudicca Derwent, her sister in that House.

Then she turns to Justin and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley. "Would you happen to have _social contacts_ with the Muggle Minister?"

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley smiles and nods. _Great Merlin, if she'd been a witch she'd have Sorted into our House, _Andromeda thinks. "Side channels," she says, "I think I understand. Minister Shacklebolt will not be the sole conduit for information."

Andromeda says, "And he'll know it, too, and watch his step."

Hermione's expression is puzzled and blank for a fraction of a second, and then hardens into a bright, feral smirk. "And not a breath of it will be official, will it?" she says. There's a keen pleasure in her face, and Andromeda is reminded again of the rumors that Rita Skeeter's hatred of this girl is more than political, that it's _personal,_ the way that successful blackmail is personal.

Justin says, "That means we'll need our own intelligence network. He's not precisely restraining the Aurors—or they're a power unto themselves."

Dean clarifies. "None of us who were _classified_ as Muggle-born got invitations." His teeth show in a disconcerting way as he says the next thing, "I was the test case. When they decided I was Half-blood, there was an invitation."

Fleur says, "Shacklebolt's a decent man, but he doesn't have the power." She considers the shaft of her wand, as her pale fingers deftly roll it. "On the other hand, we have auxiliaries… Not all of the old Order or the Defense Association belongs to the Ministry." She smiles. "A balance of powers."

There are a lot of Slytherin smiles in this decidedly mixed group.

The demands are simple: there will be no more killing of Muggle werewolves. If the intelligence from Millicent Bulstrode proves as useful as anticipated, the risk of that scenario may be considerably reduced. Which then brings them to the next demand: the direct repeal of the Umbridge legislation, given that they will be assimilating and rehabilitating multiple cohorts of adolescent werewolves, and those no-longer-children will need education and training, and then jobs, and respectable positions, once they attain to adulthood; otherwise, they will lapse back into predators for sheer survival…

"And then Greyback will have won," Lavender says, with considerable ruthlessness, "and that's not something I want to see."

Justin says that the brewing and distribution of Wolfsbane Potion will be both financed and controlled by the Foundation, with the new St. Mungo's lycanthropy ward as the distribution point. Which is to say, that the Muggle world will have a substantial stake in the whole business.

What's not said: _and a debt thereby will be incurred._

He adds that Professor Slughorn has been teaching the Wolfsbane Potion production process to the NEWTs revision group at Hogwarts, and he understands that there are several promising leads for the cadre of volunteers or paid staff who will be moved into action each full-moon under the current plan. Slughorn is looking for a permanent assistant, an apprentice or lieutenant to oversee those efforts; the choice of that person will depend upon the outcome of the NEWTs.

ooo

The conference with Kingsley Shacklebolt is brief, and the company select: herself, Justin Finch-Fletchley (his mother absents herself, as befits the power behind the throne), Bill Weasley (whose affiliations are not Ministry), Boudicca Derwent and Hippocrates Smethwyck (for testimony on the clinical underpinnings of the political proposal).

It is the first time that she's seen true weariness in Kingsley's face, and no trace of his old pleasure in the game. He knows that their safety depends upon following this politically risky course; he knows as well that there are weapons being held in abeyance, behind the arras as it were.

He accedes to their demands with a swiftness that feels anticlimactic.

It's only four o'clock in the afternoon by the time that Andromeda finds herself released from her duties to the Foundation. Except for the guard detail, the others go home. Derwent and Smethwyck indicate to Andromeda and Hermione that the patient wishes to talk to them.

Hermione sighs with distinct ill-grace, the first time she's in the least resembled an adolescent. "Oh very well," she says. She says to Andromeda, "Only out of duty. I am _not_ some angel of mercy."

Seamus and Padma move discreetly to the corners of the room, as Andromeda takes a chair on one side of the bed and Hermione on the other.

Nigel Black is pale, likely from the loss of blood, for his already pale skin has a waxy cast to it, and his lips are almost colorless. His hair, against the white pillow, is pale brown, damp and spiky, with sweat and whatever sort of stuff he'd applied to it by way of dressing (because he'd been at a New Year's Eve party, after all). He's wearing a pale green St. Mungo's hospital gown, whose low scoop neck shows his sharp clavicles and the ugly mass of angry red scars from the surgical repair of his right arm. Andromeda tries to avert her eyes from those, or at least not stare at them too obviously.

Hermione says, "Mr. Black."

He turns his head to stare at her. "Miss Granger." He smiles, and the sardonic lines of it clinch for her the question of his membership in the House of Black; that smile would sit quite comfortably on the face of Sirius or Regulus or even sulky little Draco, and it calls attention to the familiar bone structure. "I suppose I ought to admit that you were right. Or rather that your little paramour was, though I didn't quite know what he meant by _your own kind._"

Hermione replies, "Oh yes, and your _influential connections_ include my schoolmate. So much for _droit du seigneur, _eh?" In spite of her plain annoyance, she laughs. "It's a small world, isn't it, Nigel Black?" She doesn't stop laughing, and there's an hysterical edge to it. "Nigel _Black._ Oh gods, Nigel sodding Black." She says, "You don't know how many times I bit my tongue to avoid asking you if you were related to _that_ Black family."

Andromeda darts a quelling glance at Hermione, which has precisely no effect, because she has her hands over her eyes and her shoulders are quivering, whether with suppressed laughter or tears it's not clear.

When she does look up, her eyes are wet, but her lips still twitching. She masters herself and says, "And let me tell you for the last time, Draco Malfoy is not my _paramour._ Nor, for that matter, does he have any aspirations to the Turner Prize. Though I will agree with you that he has one of the ugliest tattoos in the British Isles."

Nigel glares at her.

Hermione giggles, a rather un-Hermione-like sound. "And I'm a poor excuse for an angel of mercy, but you'll have to excuse me, because I had maybe four hours of sleep last night." She suppresses the giggles with a visible effort, and sits back in the chair, her arms hugging herself as if she might fly into pieces otherwise.

Andromeda says, "Mr. Black, I believe. You'll excuse Miss Granger, I trust. She is rather exhausted. This business has led us all a merry chase." Finally managing eye contact with Hermione, she draws herself up and _glowers,_ and Hermione flinches. (It's not sporting to so consciously resurrect her appalling sister, but _a la guerre comme a la guerre._ That lack of dignity is out of place in a hospital room.)

He turns to her.

"Who are you? Are you one of those Lupin Foundation people?"

"Yes, in fact. Andromeda Black Tonks, at your service." She lets the birth-name sink in for a minute, and adds, "Honorary president of the Foundation, but more to the point…"

"A possible connection on _this side of the border,_" he says, holding the phrase with tongs. "They've interrogated me already about the supposed property on Grimmauld Place. You're a witch."

"Yes," she says. "As is everyone here. The ones who aren't wizards, that is."

ooo


	36. Chapter 36

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

Nigel Black looks at Andromeda steadily, rather too steadily for someone who's just discovered that he has a whole clutch of kin who are witches and wizards, and that he himself has lately become a werewolf.

Yes, Nigel tells her, Justin was one of the first he met on this side of the border. His lip curls. Apparently, Justin had begun with a cheerful prepared speech about how Nigel had lately fallen victim to a _treatable chronic condition,_ and he, Justin, was here to tell him about the _resources_ available for his new life.

Andromeda reflects that Nigel's disdain is one mask of fear. Until the night just past, he no doubt had the insouciance that calls itself courage, the ignorant good cheer of the young person as yet unacquainted with the vagaries of human suffering and death. It's _other people,_ lesser beings, who fall victim to illness and disaster and poverty; he's too clever for that.

She thinks it ill behooves a scion of the House of Black to assume immunity from the Fates and the Furies.

Nigel adds, with a contemptuous nod toward Hermione, "And if it hadn't been for _her,_ I wouldn't be here at all."

Hermione is on her feet in a split-second, eyes afire and wand out. "You absolute _wanker,_" she says in a hiss that reminds Andromeda of Bella at the same age. "You presumptuous little Muggle _fucker._"

Andromeda is set back, to say the least, by that sort of language from Hermione; Nigel's startled reaction tells her it's a shock to him as well.

Hermione is leaning into his personal space, supporting herself with her left hand on the railing of the hospital bed and with her right, wielding her wand and digging the tip into the flesh under his jaw. (It's instinctively Muggle-born, that sort of threat: _point-blank_ with a wand is anything within twelve paces, but Hermione is driving it home as if she were wielding a firearm.)

"You wouldn't be here because you'd be _dead._ And you wouldn't have been outside anyway if you hadn't been _harassing_ me for the last six months. No, Nigel Black doesn't take no for an answer. Nigel has a bet with his mates about how long it's going to take to bed the new girl… the bloody _exotic._ Nigel can't leave it alone, can he? 'You might want to reconsider. I'm rather better connected than you might suspect.' Yes, Nigel, I know _now_ that Justin's father is one of the bank directors, and no, I didn't use that connection to get the job. I got it on _ability_, which is something _your lot_ don't understand. Not you, and not your cousin, Draco sodding Malfoy." She adds, "Whom, I might add, I've soundly thrashed in class marks _every year_ we were in school."

Nigel's mouth drops open and his eyes widen, though it's plain he's trying to suppress his astonishment.

"Oh yes, that's what it means, belonging to the House of Black," she says. "Draco Malfoy's mother is Narcissa Black. Madam Tonks is his _aunt._" She starts laughing again, and the wand tip quivers dangerously; Nigel winces. Surely he must know it's a deadly weapon with which she's poking him, or he's one of nature's own fools.

The behavior is so unlike the Hermione she knows, that Andromeda feels a shiver of apprehension. Not that Hermione would _deliberately _hurt Nigel, but who knows what wild magic might transpire in her current state? Avoiding the dangerous and discourteous temptation to move the wand more directly, she reaches across to close her hand on Hermione's wrist.

"Hermione, _your wand._"

Hermione shivers and backs off, pocketing the wand but continuing to glare at Nigel. She says, "As if I hadn't enough trouble, with _everything else,_ I have to put up with _this lot._"

She draws herself to her full height and glares down at him; then, with one last scornful look, she turns on her heel. At the end of five long strides, she turns again to face him.

"Did it occur to you that I might be warning you off for reasons other than your very unattractive persistence?"

Nigel recognizes the shift in her tone, and says, "No."

"In this world, _my lad,_ I am reckoned mad, bad, and dangerous to know." Andromeda has to suppress a giggle both at the Byronic pose and the unconscious echo of Augusta Longbottom in the locution _my lad,_ unless it's Alastor Moody she's imitating. "It may well be you'd be safe and sound if you'd kept well away, because those werewolves might not have been there by coincidence."

Andromeda says, "Dolores Umbridge." Kingsley still talks about the Senior Undersecretary's rather cavalier readiness to deploy the Dementors in Muggle districts.

"She's on house arrest," Hermione says, "but the War Crimes Commission is packed with her protégés, not to mention the Sentient Beings committee. It has her signature, though: send monsters after those you don't like, and make sure that it's on the other side of the border." She makes a sour face. "Though given Umbridge's views on the Werewolf Problem, it would be ironic…"

Andromeda says, "I think we might want to talk to Kingsley again. _In private,_" she says, because the girl is violating the Statute of Secrecy with gay abandon, and quite enough damage has been done already.

Hermione folds her arms over her chest. "I don't trust Minister Shacklebolt. Not on this." She says, "With all due respect, Madam Tonks…"

It occurs to Andromeda that someone has been coaching her on proper address… well, that _someone_ might be Augusta, but oddly enough she's more inclined to suspect Draco.

Nigel says, "Madam Tonks, then." Andromeda nods in approval; the boy is a quick study. "You were going to tell me what I needed to know…" He's correctly read the lines of power in the room; Andromeda is his sponsor and advocate, while Hermione—personally formidable though she might be—is her junior and answers to her authority. He adds, "If we are kin, then I think you needn't call me Mr. Black." He smiles, and there's a flash of the roguish charm of Sirius. No wonder this boy might have made bets about how long it would take to seduce a girl on whom he'd set his sights; some might find that cocky attitude irresistible.

"Nigel," she says, "and by the way, I might mention that's an old family name on our side of the family. Some very distinguished figures have borne it."

He looks back at her with an approving smirk—yes, she's on familiar ground—and she continues, "I have every expectation that you'll comport yourself appropriately and not disgrace the name." (No need to mention that the fact of his Mugglehood is disgrace enough.) "However, I cannot say that I'm pleased at what I've seen and heard of your conduct toward Miss Granger."

Nigel's expression continues to remind her of Sirius, as he visibly gathers himself to make excuses.

"I think it best you add nothing to this," she says frostily. "The point of conducting oneself always as a gentleman is that one need have no regrets when discovering that someone's rank is…" she glances at Hermione, "…rather _higher_ than one had assumed."

Nigel frowns. "Who _is _she, exactly? I've gathered she's… rather a big noise on this side of the border."

Andromeda suppresses a sigh, and reminds herself that the world is full of adolescent boys who need some polishing—and in advance of that, some knocking-off of corners—before they fully qualify as adult human beings. Hermione is looking rather full of answers, though at the moment she's deferring to Andromeda.

"Well, she's a rising young star in our Ministry," she says, "and, as she's pointed out, she was quite a satisfactory scholar at Hogwarts."

Nigel blinks. "Hogwarts. That's the school for which Justin turned down Eton."

"Yes." She's heard of Eton, of course, scornfully from Ted and in rather a different tone, in the books she used to sell in the shop. "Hogwarts is by far the best school in Britain, on our side of the border." She clears her throat. "But that's all rather beside the main point. Hermione Granger is a Knight of the Order of Merlin, First Class, for conspicuous services to wizarding Britain in the late war. Services without which you, your family, and your world would be dead by now, or living in _rather reduced circumstances._"

Nigel looks puzzled.

Hermione says, "The losing side considered themselves the wizard Herrenvolk, and their leader was rather a student of Hitler. He was reared on your side of the border, and he had an undying hatred of Muggles—that would be non-magical folk."

Nigel says, "So we were like the Jews in his scheme?"

Hermione shakes her head. "No, in Tom Riddle's scheme, the _Muggle-born_ were like the Jews. Racial inferiors have to belong to the same _species. _The Muggles were more like cattle. Something to be kept _in its place_ and made useful."

Nigel frowns slightly. "So you stopped this Riddle chap."

"Not me alone. There was quite a resistance. We did a crucial bit, that's all. You met Ron…"

"The ginger lout?"

"I'll remind you he had something to do with your being alive to say snide things about him." She sighs. "And then there was Harry." She yawns, and says, "And you've met Neville."

"The hefty northern boy." There's a barely contained insolence in Nigel's expression that recalls Draco; no wonder the two of them can't stand each other. He says, "So who are the other two?"

It's Hermione's turn to frown.

"The black boy and the airy-fairy blonde. The ones who were just here. I've seen you with them in London. Now _she_ looks like a witch, but I thought she was just an art student."

"Luna and Dean, and they _are_ art students." She says, "I'm tired, and the story is tiresome. Anybody here could tell you…"

"So is he your boyfriend?"

Hermione's sharp intake of breath, and her hostile sigh, are audible from across the room. She narrows her eyes. "He?"

"Well, whichever of them. The little blond or the hefty one or the black one…"

"You remind me of Rita Skeeter, did you know that?" Hermione is plainly piqued and exhausted as well, because she's forgotten that Nigel Black would not understand that allusion nor the insult implied. "As it happens, Draco, _your cousin,_ was on the other side, so I'd watch your step with him. His father tortured your kind for fun. Dean is a friend of mine, and as for Neville…" she walks up to the bed again, "Neville Longbottom is a good fifty times the man you are, and that's _not_ counting magic into it. So if you were thinking to compete with him… don't. Because you can't win."

She turns on her heel and says to Andromeda, "I am _exhausted_ and I would sell my soul for a good ten hours' sleep. So I'm going home now, before any devils show up to strike a bargain."

She stares very hard at Nigel, and then, in complete contravention of all standards of politeness (not to mention St. Mungo's visitor policy), takes out her wand, turns in a circle, and Disapparates with a crack that rattles the water glass on the nightstand.

Nigel stares at the empty space previously occupied by Hermione and then turns to Andromeda. "She was _serious._"

Andromeda nods. "Yes, Miss Granger has a reputation for being serious. If I were you, I would take her very much at her word."

ooo

So much for being finished by four o'clock in the afternoon, Andromeda thinks, as she looks outside to the mid-winter darkness. After consultation with Boudicca Derwent, it's been agreed that Nigel will be supervised at St. Mungo's during the time of next month's transformation, and will spend his recovery time at Grimmauld Place. Meanwhile, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley will be having a chat with the Muggle Minister, to be sure that he's properly informed in addition to what Kingsley will have to say in the line of duty.

Oh yes, and she was going to write her challenge to Molly Weasley today… well, between the Remus Lupin Foundation meetings and sitting with Draco through his penitential correspondence, and then reassuring Ron and Justin, her day has had a lot to do with parental duties. Not to mention Nigel Black, who's a problem of altogether another sort. He's nowhere near as awed by magic as he ought to be, and she's not sure if she's persuaded him to let go of his untoward fascination with Hermione.

Hermione said no to him, which Andromeda understands is not a familiar experience to him, and it seems to have bred an obsession altogether out of scale to his likelihood of success… or perhaps that's the point. She can't say that she understands the appeal of unrequited passion or difficult pursuit. Her fancy for Ted was not founded on such grounds, and for all her sisters insisted that it was the appeal of the exotic and the forbidden, it was precisely that he was so comfortable and willing and sweet.

Which reminds her… that at least she's done her duties to the dead, that toast at Eddie's last night, which seems years ago now.

Oh yes, and there's another visit with Eddie to arrange… before or after the indictments? She's tired as well, and it's time to go home.

ooo

Bill Weasley stops her in the hall, with a strange expression that shows even through his ruined features. "Madam Tonks," he says. "I just received the … _oddest_ letter."

_Not more things to sort out,_ she prays, to whatever deity or demiurge occupies itself with such petitions. "From whom?"

"Your nephew." He frowns, and proffers the roll of parchment.

Yes, it's Draco's letter; she recognizes the hand, whose calligraphic grace reminds her of Cissy. It would have been she who would have been his chief examplar in that... and in any case, he's proving himself more a son of the House of Black than of the icy House of Malfoy: there's actually blood in those veins, and the warmth of it shows even in the stiff phrases of his apology.

_I cannot change what resulted from my actions on the night of Wednesday 4 June 1997, but I want you to know that I eternally regret their effect on you. _

Bill blinks, and shakes his head, and says, "It's an apology, I think. Unconditional, too. I thought at first it might be some sort of ploy, but he says here that I'm not to show it to anyone connected with the trials. He knows he's going to get Azkaban and he doesn't want to be suspected of pleading for his life."

Andromeda smiles ruefully; that's _very_ characteristic of the House of Black, that bloody-minded pridefulness, even if exercised in the best of causes.

ooo

There's never the straight line to the goal, either, for she has to double back to Longbottom House yet again to retrieve Teddy. Augusta Longbottom hasn't been in the company of a small child for many years now… well, Neville would have been the last such. She's not sure what she's going to find.

When she steps through the Floo, the kitchen is filled with unaccustomed laughter and Teddy's high-pitched shrieks. It isn't Augusta who's holding him, but Neville, who has him securely slung over one hip, and supported in the snug curve of his arm. It takes a minute for Andromeda to realize why it looks so familiar; it was Frank Sr. who held Neville the very same way… curious, because Neville can't have remembered it, but the pose is so perfectly reproduced that she'd swear it was Frank himself restored to life.

The shrieks are sounds of delight; in fact they have the characteristic quality of _small child in the presence of water,_ which is puzzling at first until Andromeda spots the quivering transparent globes gliding through the air… the other party to the mischief is Draco, who's playing about with _Aguamenti, _staring at the stream of water from the wand-tip as if he'd never seen it before, while Neville weaves it into interesting shapes and sends it floating lazily across the empty air between them, bobbling and quivering and sparkling, to Teddy's immense amusement.

He's made a grab for a few of those balls of water, to judge from the sodden state of his sleeves.

Neville says, "Draco's having rather a good day," and she remembers what she's so careful to _not mention _that she forgets it from time to time—that he's had serious difficulties with ordinary magic.

Not _Aguamenti,_ apparently, because the floor of the kitchen is already slick with water.

"That's quite enough," she says, Vanishing the puddles on the floor, and casting drying and warming charms on Teddy, and (now that she notices the state of his robes) Draco as well.

_Whatever possessed you? This kitchen is in a disgraceful state. Don't you have the sense to tidy up after yourselves?_ Those words are almost out of her mouth, when she takes stock of the situation: Neville has been looking after Teddy, and Draco has been helping—well, after his fashion—and Teddy is looking sleepy, as if he's had quite enough fun and is looking forward to the more staid pleasures of sleep.

Exactly what she might have hoped, at the end of the rather too long New Year's Day that this has been.

She says, "Thank you for looking after him," and Neville smiles, and hands Teddy over to her. "Where is Hermione?"

"Asleep," Neville said. "I wouldn't let her go back to Grimmauld Place or Hogwarts, because she'll forget to sleep if there are books on premises." His expression is almost sly as he adds, "Gran made up a bed for her and some hot tea, with just the _tiniest_ dash of Dreamless Sleep."

"Does she _ever_ sleep?" Draco says.

Neville says, "Only if all of the work is done." He's joking, of course, but it's distinctly not funny; there's an edge in his voice. "And I thought she was on holiday from the Ministry." There's weariness and affection in that, and more than a little fear. "It's as if she can't sleep if there's something she _hasn't finished,_ and she keeps finding one more thing."

Andromeda says to Draco, "Speaking of unfinished business… it does appear that Nigel Black is a relation of ours."

Draco frowns and says, "But he's a Muggle."

She shifts Teddy on her hip, as he settles into the dead sleep (and dead weight) of a well-exercised child. "Be that as it may, you have no shortage of cousins lately."

"Like mushrooms after a rain," he says, "they're popping up all over the countryside." He gives her that tentative smile, that reminds her so piquantly of Nymphadora—of _Tonks._ He doesn't need to add that he's met his youngest cousin and they've had a happy afternoon on their first acquaintance.

She says, "I'll see you both later," throws a somewhat damp handful of Floo powder into the fire, calls out "Grimmauld Place," and steps through the emerald flames to the place that is unexpectedly her home. Even as the other fires whirl by in the darkness, she thinks about the sleep in which she will indulge herself at long last. She hopes that this is not an omen for the coming year.

It's still New Year's Day when she arrives at Grimmauld Place, so she puts Teddy to bed and then seats herself at the ancient writing desk to draft the challenge to Molly Weasley. Odd how the cadences of the ritual demand flow without pause from her quill; it's the things learned in childhood that never leave, even on the dark threshold of sleep.

Her demand for satisfaction of honor under the Wizarding Code Duello is winging its way to the Burrow as she lies down to sleep, relieved that all of the day's tasks are finished. She understands Hermione's urge to finish everything before retiring… well, Hermione's _everything _is looking rather larger than what a mortal, magical or otherwise, should undertake.

ooo

**Author's notes:**

"Mad, bad and dangerous to know": Lady Caroline Lamb on Lord Byron.

Date for the Death Eater raid on Hogwarts, as cited in Draco's letter: Harry Potter Lexicon (hplexicon (dot) com). Not coincidentally, that night marks the legal end of Draco's minority, as given his canonical birth date (5 June 1980) he turned seventeen the next day.


	37. Chapter 37

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

Nor am I any of the Spice Girls, nor do I own their songs. Luna doesn't either, and her cover below is strictly for private enjoyment.

ooo

Andromeda expected that Teddy would wake her at dawn, so it comes as a great surprise to wake in her bed at Grimmauld Place with full sunlight on her, at any rate, as full as it gets at midwinter. It's a watery sort of illumination, from the partially overcast sky and the foggy windows, but it's shining directly on her eyelids, lighting them to blood-lamps.

When she opens her eyes, it's plain that the sun is nearing zenith. She sits up. Where is Teddy? Where is she for that matter? She didn't hear him…

She stands up and throws on her dressing gown, then opens the bedroom door. Downstairs, she hears his little voice gaily calling out and being answered by something in a lower register… one of the boys, Ron or Harry, she's not sure at this distance which one.

She pulls the gown about her and descends the stairs.

Harry is talking quite solemnly to Teddy and pointing out the figures in one of the more harmless Black family portraits. It's the one with Sirius and Regulus as small boys, with their toy brooms—well, to be precise, Regulus has a toy broom, while his brother has graduated to a full-sized one, though it's Regulus who holds up the Golden Snitch with a sly expression on his face.

They both smile at her as she passes. Once more, she wonders how it is for those eternally youthful avatars of mortal flesh, to see their exemplars passing back and forth, older each time. Harry has told her of portrait-Walburga's reaction to her son's death, but now she wonders what is going on in the minds of those two little boys in archaic dress robes, as they meet the little boy who's only a few years younger them in portrait-time but a full two decades in real time.

The robes they wear in that portrait were old-fashioned when Hogwarts was built. The House of Black loved to dress its children, but its Heirs especially, in the most ancient style possible, to show that they knew how such things were done, for they had come out of the northern mists as wizards, and they had been magical as long as they had been at all.

Teddy is reaching for the glittering winged thing that flutters in the loosely closed fingers of Regulus, saying "Nish! Nish!" as Regulus smirks and waves it as if holding it out of his reach.

Harry says, "Yes, it's a Snitch!" and Teddy waves his arms excitedly.

"Good morning, if it's still morning." Somewhat sheepishly she adds, "I'm sorry you had to watch him," which last she knows she's saying out of politeness, for to speak truthfully, she's grateful for the extra sleep.

Harry says, "You needed to rest. Ron told me it was wild over at St. Mungo's." Andromeda nods, hoping that he won't be asking for details. It occurs to her this morning that she may have been a witness to narrowly averted murder.

Harry says, "He's no trouble." He smiles ruefully. "I wonder if he knows he's an orphan," and the smile vanishes entirely, "I didn't know, not for years."

Andromeda says, "I don't know. He's rather young, and he seems happy enough." She frowns. "Aren't you at work today?"

"They had us on alert for three days around the new year and the full moon, so I have the day off." He lifts Teddy in the air and places him on the other hip. "It's too much, really." He shakes his head as if to clear something, or shake damp from his hair, and then says, "You'll be wanting breakfast." The tone is so firmly _Molly Weasley_ that Andromeda's tempted to laugh, until she remembers who Molly is: the witch to whom she sent a challenge last night.

It's been on her list, of course, so she can't accuse herself of rashness, but still… it's not something one can take back. There will be consequences.

She says that she'll have to make herself presentable first—what possessed her to go running about in her nightclothes and a dressing-gown?—which shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Harry smiles, as if to say he certainly knows how a child in the house will shorten everyone's morning toilette.

Andromeda goes upstairs and has a quick hot wash from the pitcher and bowl (magic is wonderful, isn't it? which thought she remembers Ted expressing when, as a newlywed, he first heated water in his grandmother's two-up two-down with the privy out back).

A quick _Scourgify_ on yesterday's clothes, and she's ready to set about the day's business.

The kitchen, when she reaches it, is redolent with the scent of sausages and potatoes and eggs—a proper fry-up that Harry is just finishing she walks in.

He makes her up a plate and says, "I used to hate cooking, because it was the thing that they made me do to show I wasn't one of them. But it's rather nice if you're feeding people you like." _They_, presumably, are his highly unsatisfactory Muggle relatives, Lily's sister… oh yes, she'd seen her once, and been astonished that the two could be related.

On the other hand, that's the thought that she heard all too often in her own hearing about herself and Cissy. Speaking of whom, there's a letter with the Malfoy family seal, lying in plain sight on the silver salver that sits on the end of the rough-hewn kitchen table. Harry has no idea how to keep a gracious home, so the things that belong in the front hall are in the kitchen, and no doubt vice versa.

"It came while you were asleep," he says, indicating the letter. She nods and takes a forkful of the hearty breakfast Harry has cooked up. She'll read it later, not least because it will be something more she'll be asked, if she knows Cissy's letters. She'll think about it later; On toward forty-six years old, she's finally understanding what her mother used to say about upset and rumpus and one's digestion. Upsetting thoughts should not be permitted to intrude on a proper meal.

Harry's feeding bits of fried potato to Teddy, who's waving his arms and opening his mouth like a baby bird.

"Is he eating solid food?"Harry says. "He seems to want some of mine…'

"He had some oatmeal at his cousin's." Teddy seems to be preparing to wean himself at eight months, not too differently from his mother. One day, Dora had twisted around in her mother's arms to have a look at the grownups' fare, just as Teddy is now.

Harry says, "I wish I didn't have to go back to work tomorrow." He wipes the bits of potato from Teddy's mouth, and says, "You know, I thought it was going to be useful, being a trainee Auror. Being an Auror in the first place. I thought I'd be helping people to be safe…" he says, "It isn't like that at all." He says, "It's Ginny I'd like to help, and there's nothing I can do. It's all in someone else's hands, until she gets better…"

He says, "And the worst thing is that you always get there too late. That's what being an Auror is… you get there after it's been done." He takes out his wand, Summons the teakettle, fills it with water and sets it to boiling. Andromeda is struck at the tasks he does by hand, Muggle-fashion, and that which comes to him to do the proper way.

"Ron says there was something wrong with Hermione when he came to the scene the night before last." He adds, "It's strange. He says she called him in particular, because she knew he was on duty…"

Andromeda says, "There was certainly something wrong with her last night."

Harry narrows his eyes. "What did you make of that Nigel person? Ron didn't like him on first sight."

"Nobody seems to like him," Andromeda says. "He has an unfortunate personality. He didn't seem particularly fussed about his… er, condition."

Ron says, "He's a git, and I didn't like his tone with Hermione." He's entered the kitchen unseen; just now he's sliding the rest of the fry-up out of the skillet and onto a plate. He sits down at the table and tucks in, with a philosophical expression, several times lifts his fork as if to gesture with it, and puts it down.

Harry says, "I was going to have some of that."

Ron mumbles something around his mouthful of sausage and potatoes, which might be "you can make some more" or "I'll make some more"… and continues to eat, elbows planted on table. Walburga would be having a fit if she could see… well, it's just as well that her portrait hangs in the front hall, given what transpired in this kitchen during the war.

Ron finishes and pushes the plate away.

"That _was_ going to be my lunch," Harry says, without rancor.

Ron says, "I didn't like him at all. Reminds me of Malfoy at his worst… the sneak. There was something wrong. Hermione had blood on her face…"

"She didn't get bitten, did she?"

"No," Ron says, frowning. "It was gone when we got to St. Mungo's. Of course, she always was a dab hand with healing charms. And she was calm, kept reciting the protocol to them, just in case they didn't get it the first time." He says, "I bet it was ol' Perce who tipped her off."

Andromeda frowns.

"Percy's a pompous git sometimes, but he knows where all the bodies are buried. Mum was looking to marry him off to Hermione, I think. What a match that would have been." He looks at Harry, who's started a second batch of breakfast. "Can I have some of that, mate?"

"You have the appetite of a starved hippogriff," Harry says.

"No, if I were a hippogriff, I'd have asked you for a nice raw rat," Ron says., toying with his fork and poking at a fragment of potato that somehow escaped his earlier attentions. He glances up at the clock. "They ought to be getting back any time now."

Harry frowns, gives the skillet rather too much of a shake, and has to flick his wand to put the contents back in before they can hit the floor.

"Eh, sorry," Ron says.

Andromeda looks at Ron, who's knitting his brows in thought. There are many questions she'd like to ask him, and then there's the awkward business that she's just sent his mother a challenge to a duel… well, and then there's the matter of his sister.

Ron says to Andromeda, "So were you at the Ministry ball?"

Andromeda shakes her head. "No, I was at my brother-in-law's." She's not sure where this line of questioning is going.

Ron says, "I heard that Hermione got there just before midnight." He smirks, and pushes the _Prophet_ across the table to her. The werewolf attack is Most Secret, of course; in place of that most disquieting news, the front page of the paper is taken up by photographs of the Ministry ball.

It does appear that Hermione was dancing—or more likely, politicking—quite a bit, if those photographs are any guide. First she's solemnly stepping through a stiff minuet, her hand outstretched to Horace Slughorn, who's resplendent in the fin-de-siecle splendor of his green velvet dress robes with the Art Nouveau snake-and-egg motifs; then she's dancing a brisk fox-trot with Arthur Weasley, and clearly but uncharacteristically laughing at her own missteps; sitting at a side-table with Xeno Lovegood and Augusta Longbottom, drinking what appears to be pumpkin juice; then waltzing with Percy Weasley, a bit apart from the other couples on the dance floor.

Andromeda glances across the captions; more of Rita Skeeter's speculation about whom might be enjoying the _private favor_ of the rather too forward Miss Granger. She thinks that Rita is rather missing the point by prattling of Hermione's love life, because in her own mind there's no question of the alliance taking shape, and she's the common thread. Her partners in dance and conversation are all allies: there's Arthur Weasley, author of the werewolf reports; Horace Slughorn, the sole concerned voice raised in favor of the disgraced and exiled Slytherin House; Xeno Lovegood and Augusta Longbottom, the publisher and financial backer, respectively, of the soon-to-be-resurrected _Quibbler,_ or more precisely, the Quibbler Press, which has rather larger ambitions than Xeno's little newsletter of previous days. Percy Weasley, of course, has reason to draw her apart from the others; if their previous colloquies are any indication, they were talking shop even among the mazes of the dance.

The pictures continue inside, with a panorama of the festivities at midnight: the embraces, tossed hats, spontaneous magical fireworks in honor of the closing of the final year of war with Voldemort (as a sign of the changed times, Rita's article actually uses the Name)… and there's Hermione, clasped quite firmly in the arms of Neville Longbottom, and laughing as he dips her backward and kisses her on the chin.

Andromeda frowns; there's something _peculiar _that's bothering her_._

"She was at the ball until three o'clock in the morning," Ron says. "Except that we got the call about Nigel at two." The smirk broadens, and Ron turns to Harry. "Perfect Percy scores again, eh? She's got a time-turner. No question."

Andromeda says, slowly, "She… _had at_ Nigel Black in the hospital room yesterday afternoon. Not very sporting, but she said she'd had four hours of sleep…" It's dawning on her that she didn't ask how long Hermione had been _awake._

Ron says, "She called us at two, and then she was there for the surgery." He adds, "That didn't finish until nearly eight o'clock." Andromeda nods; Ron's Patronus had roused her around dawn. "The Healers didn't want to put him to sleep because they were afraid he wouldn't wake up again."

He recites the particulars, wincing a little (it occurs to Andromeda that he's a bit squeamish to be an Auror): the fully conscious patient, pinioned with a localized body-bind and the bare minimum of charms to deaden the sensation in the laid-open shoulder joint, bloody and naked to the bones, as the Healers unwove Hermione's field repair and did their best to extract the cursed bits and to knit the structure back, as Hermione sat on the opposite side, and explained to Nigel, in her lecturer's tones, the rules of Quidditch, and the many possible fouls, and some of the more notable records in the game.

"He had to look at her, of course, and Quidditch is _complicated,_ and she kept asking him if he had any questions." He smirks. "He kept saying, 'You're a _witch._ Well, fuck me,' and _giggling. _Must have been the Cheering Charms."

Harry says, "Language, Ron. Unless you want my godson repeating that…"

The Floo flares with a whoosh; Ron snatches away the _Prophet _and _sits_ on it as Ginny, Luna, and Dean emerge from the emerald flames. Ginny looks rosy and she's laughing, which is very far from what Andromeda would have expected.

Luna is saying, "I told you there's more to Muggle London than King's Cross."

Ginny says, "I like those no-backchat pictures." She smiles. "Especially the ones that are just colors. No chance _those_ are just keeping their peace and gossiping when you've got your back turned."

Teddy spots her and squeals in delight, straining out of Harry's arms toward her. His hair turns red, rapidly shifting through the Weasley spectrum from bronze to carrot to an impossibly incandescent red-gold that makes it look as if his head is on fire.

Ginny says, "Teddy!"

He replies, "Nish!"

Ron bursts out laughing. "What do you want to bet he'll be a Quidditch player?" Andromeda is on her feet, eliding the awkwardness by receiving Teddy from his godfather's arms and carrying him over to Ginny, who receives him with evident delight, even though his first act is to grab a good handful of her spiky hair.

Harry is carefully not looking at Ginny; he turns back to the stove and asks if anyone else would like some breakfast—or lunch—while he's got things going.

"Not you, Ron," he adds, and Ron laughs.

Luna thanks him, and says they ate at Dean's mother's. Dean's little sisters quite enjoyed meeting Ginny, whom they knew only from their brother's Quidditch drawings. "She's as famous as the Spice Girls over there," she explains.

Andromeda hasn't the faintest notion who the Spice Girls might be, when they're at home.

Ginny laughs, untangling Teddy's fingers from her hair, and says, "They were _all over_ me! Just like this lot."

Dean laughs. "Just a taste of what you'll have to suffer when we've got professional Quidditch back!"

Harry's back is turned, so likely Ginny doesn't see him grimace and flinch at Dean's familiar tone.

Luna says, in her dreamy considering tone, that she does enjoy Muggle magic.

Ginny says that she _finally_ understands her father's obsession with Muggle things, after watching the _telly._ She particularly liked those animated dolls. Of course, Muggles have no idea how _real_ fairies look, but it was fascinating all the same.

Dean apologizes; his sisters are rather fond of that video and he ought to have restrained them playing it so many times. No doubt they've memorized the song…

Luna breaks into song in her ethereal soprano, "Viva forever / I'll be waiting / Everlasting, like the sun…" There's a melancholy look on Ginny's face. Maybe that's one of those Muggle hymns of which Ted used to talk, because it seems to be speaking across the Veil.

"Nish!" Teddy says, pointing to the kitchen doorway.

"I think he wants to visit his cousins again," Ron says. "The picture in the hallway." He gets up, carefully interposing himself so that Ginny won't catch a glimpse of the _Prophet _on the bench, and shows her out to the hall; the high-pitched squeal a minute later would indicate that his conjecture was correct.

Harry's hunched shoulders radiate tension, as he pushes the food around in the skillet with rather more force than necessary. The pinched expression on his face, brows drawn together and mouth in a hard line, emphasizes its thinness.

Ron has seated himself once more, chin in hands, fork playing with the crumbs on his empty plate.

Harry offers Andromeda a second serving. She shakes her head. It's been decades since she's had that sort of appetite—not since she was pregnant with Nymphadora, at a minimum.

He makes himself up a plate, and gives the rest to Ron. "Feeding time for the hippogriff." Ron laughs and lifts his fork.

They eat in silence, as Andromeda pushes her empty plate to one side and peruses the _Prophet._ An acidic editorial, taking as its pretext the useless preparations for a Death Eater attack that never came, makes much of the _opportunism_ and _cheap rhetoric_ of the Shacklebolt Ministry. The captions to the panoramic spread of the midnight celebrations make mention of the light-minded Miss Granger and her idle fling with a fellow war hero, in contrast to the sober conduct of her erstwhile friend Harry Potter and his handsome fiancée—both notably absent from the festivities, he for reasons of duty and she by reason of an undisclosed illness—

Andromeda closes the paper with a crisp, furious snap and rattle of the pages. Ron looks up. "It's Rita bloody Skeeter again, isn't it?"

Andromeda wishes he wouldn't use language like that, though she certainly understands his feeling.

"You didn't get to the bit where they speculate Ginny's pregnant." He deftly impales a bit of sausage on his fork, and eats it with bared teeth. "I hate that bloody cow."

Harry breaks in censoriously, "Ron, the _language._ Teddy's in the house."

"He's in the hall, talking to Regulus Black." Ron stares at the food on his plate as if it had personally offended him. "Skeeter's never going to leave us alone, is she?"

"Not by the look of it," Harry says with surprising mildness, "but she's really out for Hermione." He adds, "Sometimes I think she'd have done better to have squashed her like the bug she is. Then at least she'd be out of our hair." He sighs.

Andromeda says in her crisp sensible way, "Rita Skeeter is the least of your worries just now, I would think."

Harry nods, looking briefly as if he might cry, and then says, "Ginny."

Andromeda looks at Harry and him, "I think we might want to have this conversation more privately." She cocks her head in the direction of the hallway where Ginny is entertaining Teddy.

ooo

It's in the ancient library, still gloomy although not actively Dark, that they finally converse.

"The Healer told me she would have to find her way back to what she really loved," Harry says. "But it feels as if I'm in the way… so it's Dean and Luna seeing her about town." He looks at his hands, as he sits in one of the tall chairs by the gloomy window.

However anyone might clean the glass of Grimmauld Place—and it was the redoubtable Molly who Scourgified the library windows within an inch of their lives—it still does not let in the full light of day, an effect particularly noticeable in early January.

She says, "What is troubling you about that?"

"I worry Ginny might find she likes Dean better," he says. "They were together before." he hesitates. "I want what's best for her but I can't pretend that I don't want _her_."

Andromeda waits, because there's plainly more.

"She doubted me, but I never doubted her. It doesn't matter what she did with anyone else. I wouldn't have reproached her with it. We weren't even together…" He puts his face in his hands, to hide his expression she suspects. "Nothing's as it should be. I thought I'd be living at the Burrow. I thought that we'd all be happy. After all, winning the war was supposed to make a difference. And it has. There isn't one big threat…"

"… But the little ones haven't gone away," she says. "Werewolves and Dementors and wandering vigilantes: they aren't little threats, either. Add them up and they come to something. It's just there's not a a mastermind behind them." She adds, "There's something else you should know. I've challenged Molly Weasley to a duel."

Harry looks up at her, not quite believing, or in shock… sharp green eyes on hers, hands clenched in his lap.

She says, "Hermione convinced me… or rather, Molly's reaction to what Hermione said."

Harry says, "You mean that remark about the tea. About the spread she put out for Tonks."

Andromeda nods, pleased that he remembers,

He is silent for a long time. "I don't know what I think anymore. About anybody. Someone dosed Ginny with Amortentia. It had to be someone in that house." He says, "Do you think it was her mother? Do you think she'd do that to her own daughter?"

Andromeda says, "I don't know. Dean was skeptical that it was Molly."

Hary says, "If you were sure…"

"I'm not. " What she doesn't add is that it's only a matter of probabilities in the case of Tonks, but that dream stirred her. As she said, what convinced the most was Hermione's remark, and Molly's reaction to it, but even so that's hearsay. Dean has no reason to lie, and less reason to estrange Molly. They're all living in exile now, because of the incident on Christmas evening. The Burrow is a great deal more pleasant than Grimmauld place, and she'd be there if she could do so without compromising herself.

Harry says, "I've thought about inviting Hermione to live here." He looks at the floor. "She'd proabably refuse, though. She's got a place at Hogwarts."

"A cubbyhole," Andromeda says. "I've seen that room. Or rather, I've seen the room like it, that my nephew had, and it's a closet."

"I saw her room," Harry says. "It's just... it's her own. And I'm not sure she wants to be in the house with Ron."

Andromeda says, "She's in a bad way. Madam Longbottom is looking after her just now." She looks at him. "Are the two of you still at odds?"

Harry looks down. "Not exactly." He stares intently at a particular patch of carpet, an as if he expected something to take shape on it and daren't blink for fear of missing that. "She's not what she was."

Andromeda says, "You mean that she might need something from you, rather than the other way round." She stands. "Harry, I am already a mother to Teddy, and an aunt to my nephew, whom as you already know is a _very_ difficult person, and they've told me that they mean to have Nigel Black here once a month to recover after his transformation. I think you don't appreciate just how bad the blood is between the two of them."

"Nigel and Hermione?"

"Nigel and Draco as well. And I'm _involved in other matters, in a way I'm not at liberty to discuss, but let's just say that there's a good amount of unfinished business from the First War, let alone the one that just concluded."

She says, "So I will not be mother where what's called for is friend, and someone else's friend at that."

Harry says, "So you're saying that I haven't done right by Hermiome?"

Andromeda says, "I think that all of you have assumed that she's your mother, when at best she's your sister. Which means she's the same age as you, and might need some of the same things."

Harry sighs. "She always knew what she was doing."

"I'm not convinced that's the case. But she's pretended so for a very long time."

Harry looks at her solemnly, and then nods, apparently having decided something.

Ron's Patronus appears once more, scampers around the room, and says, "Come downstairs—now." As they open the door to the hallway, there's Luna's voice, singing once more, "I'll be waiting / everlasting / like the sun."

Everlasting, like the sun… except Ted told her once, that the Muggles (or their own mages) say that even the sun eventually will burn out, bright and ancient though it is.

As Andromeda descends the stairs, Luna stops singing, turns, and looks up. She's holding Teddy now, and Ginny passes her, running up the stairs two at a time.

Luna says, "Molly Weasley is in the kitchen, and she wants to talk to you."

ooo

**Author's note:** Luna is singing the chorus of the Spice Girls' 'Viva forever,' (released in summer 1998); the video to which Dean alludes is the accompanying music video, which features the singers as animated fairies. Sources: Wikipedia and Youtube for the chronology and video respectively.

"…they had come out of the northern mists as wizards…" a parody of lines from the opening scene of Virginia Woolf's _Orlando._


	38. Chapter 38

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

The kitchen is empty. The skillet has been cleaned and the plates stand on the sideboard, freshly washed. Andromeda wouldn't have credited two teenage boys with that sort of care for detail, but apparently they've taken to heart that they're going to be living in this house. Knowing what she does of Ginny's condition and Lavender's, it's clear that Harry and Ron are now in the role of caretakers rather than waited-upon.

Molly is standing just in front of the Floo, in her everyday robes and traveling cloak, Andromeda's challenge in her hand. That's what the curled parchment must be, for periodically Molly looks at it and frowns, when she's not inspecting the kitchen with her housewife's eye. It's almost too bare for that glance to have anything on which to fix.

Andromeda says, "You received my letter, then."

Molly turns to her, and frowns. "Yes, I rather wondered if you were entirely well, so I came to see for myself."

It's an act of supreme insolence, for any meeting after the challenge ought to be mediated by the seconds.

Andromeda says, "Whom did you choose as your second? Mine is already chosen, and a meeting place can be decided."

Molly says, "I thought we'd have a nice chat to see if this is even necessary." She wrinkles her nose. "I don't see the need of all this archaic foolishness and scandal. You all left rather impetuously."

Andromeda closes her right hand over the wand in her pocket; instinct takes it there. Very little can be taken at face value; when you're dealing with Gryffindors, it's only another sort of subterfuge.

"I believe that my reasons are enumerated in that letter. And you're well-bred enough to know what happens next." Every Pureblood, rich or poor, knows that drill; why is Molly suddenly taking this tack? It's Arthur who's the rebel and the cultural experimentalist, the lover of the exotic. Yes, they kicked over the traces and eloped, and their children have forgone traditional marriage contracts, but aside from that (and the love of Muggle dress, which is an eccentricity tolerated in Order circles) the Prewetts and the Weasleys both are the very model of proper Purebloods in the modern style.

Molly says, "This is foolishness. Why can't we have a chat and resolve it?"

Andromeda hasn't lost her grip on the wand. "There are certain _explanations_ I'd like, certainly." She isn't willing to relent just yet, but her curiosity is getting the better of her. "Such as just what did go on at your kitchen table, with my daughter."

Molly is searching for the tea kettle; she finds it and sets up tea. It's in the nature of Molly Weasley to take command in any kitchen in which she finds herself, if not actively opposed by some equal power. Andromeda watches her hands, watches the water go into the tea kettle, watches the teakettle boil and the tea spooned out (Lapsong Soochong out of a tin from a Muggle shop, an offering from Percy).

Yes, she feels a little foolish, but all safety considerations have a side that looks foolish.

Molly says, "There's nothing to tell, really." She smiles with some complacency. "Your daughter came to my house with the rest of the Order, and she took to staying on after the meetings."

Andromeda says, "She was less and less inclined to speak to me that year."

"She didn't think you understood. And she'd had an episode of heartbreak. I thought it might do her good to meet other young people, more _politically suitable_ ones, and the Order was a fine place for that." She says, "Everyone loved her so, your Tonks. She did cheer us, when we badly needed it."

Molly sips the tea, which as yet is too hot, and startles at the scalding temperature… which tells Andromeda that this story is not all that it might appear. Molly should know more about the proper temperature of tea, given the amount of the stuff she's served over the years.

Andromeda says, "So you say she was heartbroken. Do you mean that business with Remus?"

Molly looks shifty for a moment, and then must have decided that Andromeda already knows the answer, for she says with decision, as if it had been what she'd meant from the outset, "No. There was something else. A falling-out with … a friend. Politics, so I thought, because that was after the Triwizard Tournament and that ugly business with Fudge, and there was quite divided feeling about what _had_ happened." She folds her hands demurely around her tea cup. "She'd been going to see Alastor Moody in hospital, and her friend would call him 'that old madman' which didn't sit well with her."

"That was the majority view in the Auror corps at the time," Andromeda says. That had been a difficult year; all that summer, Moody had been recovering from the effects of his incarceration by the impostor… Crouch's son, the account had it, one of Bella's earliest and most loyal conquests. (The conquest certainly had been political; Andromeda suspected at the time that there was some element of schoolboy crush in it as well.)

"Well, things were just getting more and more fraught with her friend, who was saying that the Ministry knew best, and Moody was just a mad old man who'd been on about Dark wizards all his life, and everyone knew he was crazy as a bedbug on the subject…"

Andromeda resists the urge to fold her arms skeptically… for if she does that, she either will have to let go of the wand or show it. "So who might this friend have been?"

Molly says, "Someone in the Auror corps."

A wild guess. "Might it have been Addie McConnell?" Molly's face is just a bit too candid; the reaction tells her she's guessed right. Andromeda can sketch the rest of the story: McConnell had been skeptical, and she and Tonks had had a political falling-out… and very much later, after the death of her mother and brother and sister under the Thicknesse Ministry, she'd become a belated convert to the Order point of view, with all the fury and fervor typical of those come late to the scene, and likely with an overlay of guilt as well (might McConnell's family have been saved if she'd come around sooner?)

Andromeda sighs and wonders how many times that particular tale had been duplicated in one family or another. Even the Weasleys had been touched by it: Percy had been the skeptic, and his parents, believers. Though to be fair, there was no good way to decide the question, at first; it came down to deciding whom to believe. The only certainty at the end of the Triwizard Tournament had been the death of Cedric Diggory and the belated reappearance of Barty Crouch, just in time for the Dementor's Kiss. Altogether convenient, that last; one might suspect Fudge of having arranged to shut him up, once and for all… but after all that was only circumstantial. And one might accuse Dumbledore of being self-serving in that too, for he'd permitted the impostor to go undetected for a full school year, during which 'Moody' had been hailed by some number of students as an exemplary teacher… for _making examples_ of some children of erstwhile Death Eaters, most notably and spectacularly, her nephew.

She says, "So they had a falling-out."

Molly nods, and is encouraged to continue. "It just seemed unhealthy, the way she was fixed on that." Andromeda frowns, and Molly makes a short impatient gesture. "Oh, do spare me any sermons. She was the only girl in a crowd of boys; plenty of diversion to choose from."

"Not the only girl." Molly looks puzzled. "There was Fleur Delacour…"

"I don't count her. She wasn't Order, just trailing about after Bill…"

"As I recall, she was working at Gringotts at the time." She adds, "And her sympathies were most solidly with the Order." Molly's features have taken on that stubborn, closed look of which she's seen echoes on her children's faces. "Never mind. So you had the notion that my daughter was in need of diversion…"

"Well, yes, she needed to be out and about, seeing people her age, not moping over some schoolgirl spat."

Addie McConnell had been a few years ahead of Tonks, so by no means had either of them been schoolgirls at the time… but Andromeda keeps her peace, curious as to what justification Molly will have for what she's now quite sure she had done.

Molly says, "It's all quite simple, you know. She was there, and Remus would stop by... and well, one thing led to another." She smiles and takes a sip of tea. "It's really quite mad bringing these things up now. Everyone concerned is dead."

The smile is smug, and pitying, and Andromeda feels the heat in her face and the spike of fury in her chest at the same time. She says in a tight, hard voice, "You've told me nothing I don't know already. Tonks had a falling-out with her friend Addie, and there's the official story about Remus."

She adds, "And it's not for you to say that there are no grounds for a duel. I've issued a challenge, and it's for you to choose the ground, and for our seconds to carry the messages, including any discussions of reconciliations or _apologies._"

Molly says, "Given your sister's record, I wouldn't think you'd care for a duel."

It takes a moment before it dawns on her which sister Molly means, and what that implies. It's a slap in the face, another layer of insolence—_deliberate_ provocation—on top of what's already passed.

Andromeda takes a deep breath and says, "Your record in Potions was stellar, and someone in your house poisoned your daughter with Amortentia. Quite recently, and it's been attested by experts. And you've a name for joking all too much about the uses of love potions." She narrows her eyes. "Now, the lovely thing about Amortentia, as you no doubt know, is that it's very difficult to trace after fifteen to thirty minutes. So if they were to exhume my daughter and Remus, no one would be able to judge the question _after the fact,_ would they now?"

Molly's face has gone pink. "How dare you…"

"It's all I can conclude, given that my daughter had no interest in men that I ever saw," she adds. "And I think you know that her falling-out with Addie McConnell was something more than a _schoolgirl spat._"

"McConnell's father was an Auror who was killed in the First War. So the tale that Crouch had freed his own Death Eater son from Azkaban was too much. And she thought Moody was a madman, and Tonks looked up to him."

Andromeda smiles, noticing that Molly is dancing about the subject. Of course; it's the Pureblood way. "Yes, it was political, but no doubt you've noticed that political arguments are all the more bitter between _lovers._"

She's gratified at the sharp intake of breath and the way that Molly goes pale. "And I knew Remus Lupin from the time he was eleven years old, and I never heard even a breath of a rumor that he was interested in girls." She remembers that discomfiting scene from the First War, and adds, "I walked on him and Sirius once, and that rather cleared up _that_ question."

Molly is staring at her as if she's committed an indecency, which in Pureblood terms, she has, if nothing else by speaking plainly of country matters.

"So if I read the situation correctly, Tonks had just broken up with her lover, and Remus had lost his, so you thought there was enough symmetry to justify binding them to each other. Except you seem to have done rather a better job with her than with him, which made the suffering worse on both sides."

No sooner are the words out of her mouth than the reality of the matter lances through her like cold steel: if his parents had lived, Teddy's life might not have been as happy as it is now… Her body wants to double over with the pain of it, but her _deportment_ triumphs; it's a matter of grace under pressure, the concealment of grievous wounds lest one's adversary take advantage.

Molly's color has gone to white with a greenish cast, and her eyes are feverishly bright.

A direct hit, or a near miss?

"Or did you aim to bind her to someone else, and get Remus by mistake?"

The flinch tells her that it's a direct hit.

No need to question further; the picture snaps into place. Bill. Molly had wanted someone for Bill, someone _acceptable_, which is to say, someone who wasn't Fleur Delacour. Poor Remus was just _collateral damage,_ as they call it on the other side of the border.

A small, cold voice high in the vault of her skull reminds her that before Bellatrix was known as a _torturer,_ she was known as a very effective _interrogator._ And she's got the knack herself, it would seem, except that she has the wisdom to use pain as information, rather than an end in itself.

She says, "I think that any references to my late sister are rather beside the point. My second is Augusta Longbottom, and yours can feel free to contact her at earliest convenience with the details." She takes a steadying breath so that the pain won't shake her voice. "The ground, date and time, and so forth. I'm assuming it's to be wands at forty paces, but if there's something else you'd prefer in the way of weapons, no doubt we can discuss the point."

Molly's mouth works soundlessly for a moment or so, and then she says in a furious undertone, "You Slytherins stick together, don't you?"

"It's not a matter of House. Her grandson also offered to stand as second, given the offense to _his own, heart of his heart._ I refused his offer, as that's a separate case." She says, "Just to let you know, you're accused of dosing Ginny to bind her to Harry. Which given your past record, I'm willing to entertain as a possibility."

"How _dare_ you."

"I didn't say I'd come to any conclusions. The poisoner in that case seems to have been much cruder and clumsier. She's been _overdosed._ Though the Auror Department might have something to say about it, as it's affected the performance of her duties. And then there's the attempt on Hermione and Percy…" Those furious hazel eyes are fixed on hers. "The case that concerns us is Tonks and Remus. I will expect a reply from your second…"

"How dare you. I offered you the hospitality of my house…"

"For which I'm grateful, and I believe you have a Yule letter to that effect."

Molly looks at her with a considering glance and that very provoking smile. "If all you say is true, there's yet more for which you ought to be grateful."

Andromeda is so angry that she can't speak; her right hand cramps and she realizes that she has been grasping the handle of her wand rather more tightly than she ought. She takes a deep breath and lets it out, and keeps Molly's hands well in her peripheral vision as she holds eye contact.

Molly reads the silence as a question, and says, "I don't think it likely you would have a grandchild otherwise."

Andromeda gathers her last reserves of patience and says in as level a manner as she can manage, "I will be pleased to hear from your second at nearest opportunity." Her hand is out of her pocket now, the wand pointing to the earth in the traditional fashion: not a threat, but the promise of one if things devolve further. "Any further breaches of protocol will be taken as an invitation to combat _without rules_."

Molly stands on the hearth for a moment, wearing that measuring look. Then she says, "Very well." She turns to go, and takes a breath as if to say more.

"Anything more from you is a breach of protocol," Andromeda says. "And if it came to a contest, this house is more on my side than yours." Not true exactly, but if Grimmauld Place had to choose between one _of its own blood_, even formerly, and an invader, she might not be far wrong.

Molly takes a handful of Floo powder and throws it into the flames; they leap and flare, and for a moment her red hair clashes violently with them, until she is swallowed up and vanishes.

Andromeda is shaking with fury, and the effort expended in restraining it. She sits down, somewhat unsteadily, thinking about the sheer insolence she just witnessed, and the confession she heard—for Molly denies not a word of the accusation at the heart of the matter—and so she is sitting when Lavender returns through the Floo from visiting her mother, and then the Floo flares for the third time that morning to show the worried visage of Justin Finch-Fletchley.

She assumes this is on Foundation business, but Justin shakes his head. "Not exactly. My mother would like to speak to you… on a private matter."

Andromeda represses the urge to sigh. "When would she like to meet?"

"If you'd join us for tea, that would be quite nice." She's not sure why it's the son relaying the invitation rather than the mother, until he adds, "At my flat. I just had it connected to the Floo system, and she thought you might prefer to travel _your way_ than ours." Quite right, she thinks, remembering the cab ride with Kingsley to the Muggle restaurant for their tete-a-tete. Which reminds her once more of her business with Kingsley: there's the settling of the terms of her nephew's parole, and the status of the Black fortune, and the date for the indictments…

"That's quite thoughtful of her. What time do you expect me?"

"Four o'clock, if that's convenient."

ooo

There's nothing she's asked to bring, and Justin repeats once more that it's not Foundation business, but a rather more private inquiry. A question of _wizarding ways_. He won't say more, but even in the fiery simulacrum in the green flames, he looks distinctly ill at ease.

He says that he'll return at four o'clock to take her there; their Floo access has some additional layers of security, as one would expect in the face of _recent events_.

Andromeda nods, realizing that this is likely the euphemism by which the Second War will be known for some time. Justin nods briskly and vanishes.

Finally, she has the opportunity to read her sister's letter—not something she's been exactly eager to do, for she still mistrusts Cissy not to ask yet more favors—by which time it's been joined on the silver salver by another, this one on Muggle paper. That would be Eddie's note.

There's the temptation to a mad giggle as she imagines Cissy and Eddie taking tea together… or better yet, drinking pints in Eddie's pub. It's still impossible to bring Lucius into that picture; she imagines he'd spontaneously combust in outrage at Eddie's familiar manner. "So, Lucky, we hear the Death Eater business is in rather a slump lately…" No, she'd best not go down that path; it's too fraught, and there's nothing funny about Lucius or his deeds, early or late. And it feels like the shortest of steps from that giggle to the maniacal, shrieking laughter of Sirius on his arrest…

Eddie's writing to set the date for her nephew's visit to his _other family_ as he delicately puts it. He proffers a list of dates, and Andromeda is grateful to him for his brisk practicality, as she mentally composes her reply: they'll need Ministerial approval, of course, and she'll take those dates to Shacklebolt for negotiation. He'll have an armed escort, of course, and they'll be as discreet as possible, but it's probably best to plan for three or four visitors rather than one…

She's climbing the stairs to her room, absently unsealing her sister's letter as she mentally lays out the last of the one to her brother-in-law.

She writes the letter for Eddie, and then takes up Cissy's missive, which to her relief is merely conventional greetings and thanks for her assent to the request to stand by Draco when the _bad news_ comes…

Luna peeks in and asks if it's all clear for Ginny.

"Oh yes, Molly Weasley went home a while ago," she says. Luna smiles, that expression whose vagueness, she realizes, is a haze of melancholy. Luna hasn't any real notion of what it is to be a grownup at odds with one's mother… well, so many children of the First War could say the same, and the only difference is that Emily Lovegood was a _civilian casualty_ in the full sense.

Luna departs, and Andromeda writes both of her letters, and hunts up an Owl to take them… by which time it's nearly half past three. Harry and Ron are still entertaining Teddy, and she stops in to see if she should take him with her when she goes to see Justin's mother. No, Harry assures her that it's absolutely no problem. He knows where the baby things are and all will be well.

ooo

**Author's note: **Posting schedule likely will be biweekly for the next few months, due to real-life work demands.


	39. Chapter 39

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

It's all in order by five minutes to four o'clock, when Justin's familiar face shows in the flames. Andromeda has gathered her cloak and straightened her hair, and she's wearing everyday robes over her jeans and Ted's chamois shirt. That choice was instinctive; she wears the clothing of the world of her birth, but now it is a layer thrown over what she wears every day.

Andromeda has been summoned as a representative of her world, so she ought to look the part. She knows that to Mrs. Finch-Fletchley, those robes stand as a sign of office.

Furthermore, the other woman's eye is well trained for distinctions of class in her own country, but in exotic costume Andromeda can well hide her poverty. The material of the robes is excellent, and their cut is ancient, which hides a multitude of sins.

Justin steps through the Floo and asks if she's quite ready. For a moment, she's taken with the strangeness of him, Muggle-born, standing in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. Not that she frequented that room all that often in childhood, except covertly…

She squares her shoulders and sighs, and says that she's ready. He offers his arm, and they step into the Floo together. In the darkness, the other fires whirling by, he calls out the name of the flat but also an incantation, presumably to tell the protective magic at the threshold that he is safe, and arriving with someone else who's to be treated as safe. It's rather different from the old blood magic, bound to the house and run by Aunt Walburga's tapestry, or the earth magic that reigns at the Burrow. Justin's magic is altogether of the modern style, which proves as well to be the style of his flat. It's a subtle updating of a rather ancient house; as she steps out of the Floo into the drawing-room with its Persian carpet and its softly-cast electric light, she realizes that the lines of the house are eighteenth-century, like those of Grimmauld Place… but of course, it's rather different.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley rises to greet her, with a tight and formal smile to her son. Tea is laid out, already, on a beautiful table of ancient make; gorgeous inlay-work and intricately carved feet are visible under the starkly elegant modern tablecloth.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is pleased, so she says, that Andromeda could make time in a very busy routine. Things are altogether complicated in the wake of the war, and she confesses still to be learning all that she must know to negotiate her son's world. She's grateful to the Order, of course, for the help during the war.

Andromeda nods, not knowing precisely what aid was rendered. That these debts are being mentioned tells her that she is very definitely here not as herself, mere Andromeda Tonks, but as a representative and an expert.

They sit, and drink the tea; Justin joins them, looking like a schoolboy called on the carpet. Yes, he's young, and not a year ago he _was_ a schoolboy, but his stoical expression calls attention to the scars, that show lividly in spite of the soft light. Soft, but cold, as is the light of the Muggle world: called up as if by magic, glowing in sconces that once held candles and then gas-lamps and now discreently hidden glass vessels full of light. By all the forces of the world except magic, the Muggles imitate true enchantment.

Andromeda sips her tea, and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley talks about how very different the world is across the border, for all the work is quite familiar. She nods to Justin, who adds that he's been at Diagon Alley this afternoon, and the weather is quite the same, at which there's a neutral disquisition on the Christmas and New Year they've just had, and the hope that it bodes well, such a lovely old-fashioned snow it was the other day…

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says that things are rather complicated of late, and she's had a word with the Muggle Minister, as they call him, and … well, things are quite as well as one might expect. He agrees that one oughtn't to take a punitive line with a condition that's not the fault of the sufferer, and of course it's distressing that the NHS currently has no facilities for treating that condition, but a joint venture is welcome… which says to her that the lines of communication are open. She's not sure he quite understood, because 'werewolf' conjures such a very different picture for the Muggles; it's a matter of lurid things they've seen at the cinema, and of course they don't understand the fine points, though the folklore has preserved the essentials with rather impressive fidelity.

In any case the main point is that Kingsley did have a chat with him, and the matter's under discussion, and of course the regrettable past practices came up, and there are assurances that this is after all the new regime and that sort of thing won't be tolerated from here onward.

Andromeda smiles, genuinely, for the first time that afternoon. Yes, it's a good thing that it's understood, and in any case there's little he can do about it, but one wishes Kingsley's counterpart to be well-inclined, because there are other things they need that are _not_ a wizarding specialty.

Yes, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, that question was raised; Kingsley's been rather thoroughly briefed, it would seem, for he's opened discussion of the refugee problem, and the rehabilitation of the war orphans. Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley, Arthur's son who works in the Ministry, and young Mr. Longbottom, the war hero, all three of them had done a splendid job of making it all clear, and Kingsley's a quick study, no question about that. She only wishes Muggle Britain had someone of his caliber. But she supposes that a small world necessarily breeds Renaissance men. One hasn't the luxury of specialization, leave alone over-specialization.

Andromeda nods, not having thought of it in quite that way. From all Ted said, the men and women at the helm of the wizarding world were of an antique stamp from his point of view; their like had not been seen in the Muggle world for centuries. Not that he meant that as praise, particularly; he'd spoken of Lucky as a figure who wouldn't have been out of place in the political world of Good Queen Bess. On the other hand, the scale of the thing does make it rather easier to keep track of the players, which was the thing Ted fancied about the game.

Justin smiles slightly, and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, "Of course, there's the question of Nigel Black." She clarifies, "Other than as a political problem, I mean."

Justin adds, "He was a bit surprised to meet me at St. Mungo's, though not as much as one would think."

"Shock, no doubt," Andromeda says. It would cover a multitude of reactions, including Hermione's somewhat hysterical laughter and her outburst of rage.

"He'd been on about this girl he met at work, and I did let on I knew her." He frowns. "I had no idea it would turn out this way." His tone is apologetic.

It's a little window onto the other side of the Muggle-born question, of course; Nigel has only the faintest notion that his acquaintance took _another path_, but given that the path he declined was a place at Eton, there's necessarily curiosity, and some amount of mystification. Nigel's antecedents are impeccable but Justin admits, without saying it in so many words, that Nigel has some of the push and drive of the arriviste, with the access of the insider; when he _took an interest_, he had the means of finding out… and he already was finding it curious that certain things he expected to see were not in place.

Andromeda frowns.

Apparently he had taken it on himself to find out who Hermione was, and where she'd done her schooling, and to follow up some number of things … in his _own_ investigation, and there were any number of details that were right. All of the references were quite in order, but the whole picture did not add up as expected. He'd known there was something odd, when someone of her inclinations—technically and intellectually—well, just seemed a bit more _obscure_ than he'd expected. And her friends were just _odd_.

Andromeda adds that there's the _Daily Prophet_ photo scandal, as well, though Nigel can't properly be blamed for that; he was merely the catalyst for her nephew's fit of chivalry.

Justin shakes his head, and she recognizes in his expression some of her own rueful feeling when contemplating the management of Draco's impulses.

So things will be smoothed over, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, and that's the use of Kingsley and his Muggle counterpart, but there's the question of where such a person as Nigel will fit in the social scheme of things, _on their side_.

Andromeda had not considered the question; Nigel is more a _problem_ than a feature of the social scene. In any case, he's to be at St. Mungo's in the new wing only a few days a month…

… except that he has the notion that there's something more, apparently.

A delicate question, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, because the boy's parents have been notified, after a fashion, and they're concerned about what is to happen, given that his brother… At any rate, Nigel has been sowing his wild oats and this last episode… Young men do marry later than they were wont, but this latest development does put rather a spanner in the works…

… and really, her question is about marriage customs, so to speak, and what's a proper match.

She doesn't ask the question quite so bluntly as that, of course, and somewhere in this colloquy Justin excuses himself on urgent business, although Andromeda is quite sure it's rather the opposite. He's been dismissed so that the adults can speak plainly.

Rather sooner than expected, the question has presented itself; Nigel's parents are distressed about whether their second son will be able to marry at all, and whom; and Justin has broached the question of his own interest in a young lady from the wizarding world, which is right and proper as there's really no realistic prospect of a marriage on the Muggle side of the border. (The war injuries are the least of it.) He's gone too far into the other world, has joint citizenship at a minimum, but… there's a vexing question of how appropriate a match he's contemplating. Things are different over there, she knows. Miss Granger, now, her antecedents are not what they should be on the Muggle side, but across the border… well, she would be no one to refuse. But the other…

Andromeda waits for the question with mild curiosity. She'd certainly heard some amount of whispering among the young people that Justin wasn't inclined to young ladies at all, though she'd read him only as single-minded in his work.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley sharpens the question. She already knows that things in the wizarding world don't precisely correspond to their Muggle counterparts, and the institution of interest to her just now is the Leaky Cauldron.

Andromeda looks at her across the tea-table. "So what is it you want to know about the Leaky Cauldron?"

"It's a … public house. But I understand the apprentice is going to be sitting her NEWTs. Does one need to be a fully qualified witch or wizard to be a mere publican? It struck me odd."

Something tells Andromeda that it's not a merely cultural question, asked of hypothetical curiosity. "No, it's not… what a pub is in your world. My brother-in-law, the Muggle one, he runs a pub in London. It's not at all the same thing." She knows she's not explaining well, but persists, remembering the argument she had with her daughter all these years ago. Why was Eddie's trade so much less distinguished than that of his wizarding counterparts?

"You know the Three Broomsticks, then." Mrs. Finch-Fletchley nods. "Madam Rosmerta… the Madam is honorific of course, the same way as you'd speak of Madam Longbottom or Madam Bones or Madam Marchbanks. She's a person of central importance. Those are the places… where things happen. Gathering points. Even the Hog's Head… you know Aberforth Dumbledore. Conspicuously good family. The late headmaster's brother. It wasn't a step down in the world for him, no. It's a different sort of thing."

"And the Leaky Cauldron?"

"The most important one of all. Of course the apprentice has to be fully qualified. She's apprenticing to the gatekeeper. That's the door between the worlds. She'll have to be more than fully qualified. I don't think Tom would look at someone with less than O's, particularly…" she remembers the usual traffic in the Leaky Cauldron, which ranges from the highly respectable to the distinctly dodgy, even the occasional Dark Creature… "especially in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley frowns. "Those are the qualifications of an Auror."

"Yes, that would be right. Do you think the Aurors have nothing better to do than to stand guard at the gateway? They're to be out and about, where Dark Wizards aren't expected. One always expects something at the Leaky Cauldron." She pauses. "You know how it got its name, don't you?"

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley smiles and shakes her head, with the expectation of someone to be let in on particularly choice gossip.

"It's the wall, you know. A wall with a hole in it. A cauldron that leaks. The vessel isn't closed; it can't be. We have to come and go, however much we'd like to pretend we live apart. There's food, and clothing; there's commerce. Not all of us do business in Galleons and Sickles and Knuts. We're not all of us in the middle ages, you know" (this with a conscious dip of the chin to Ted) "but some of us ride motorbikes and watch telly. Not all of us stay on one side, at all. My daughter, for example… passed as well in London as any of you." (Though not in Mrs. Finch-Fletchley's London, she would wager.) "Now the Keeper of the Gate, he has to know—she has to know—all the worlds. I wouldn't be surprised if old Tom were telling her she needed O's in Muggle Studies and a practicum to boot. That's where all the Muggle-borns' parents come through; it's their first stop in the wizarding world. It has to be not too strange for them, and accommodate the ones from the _other_ worlds as well." (That would be the hags, and the banshees, and the occasional vampire or down-at-heels werewolf out of full-moon season.) Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is nodding. "It's not at all an easy job, and the Keeper always has the ear of the Minister, and Head of DMLE, and for that matter the Head Auror. He's the eyes and ears."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley nods judiciously and offers Andromeda the plate of biscuits. They're quite nice, and she takes one. Ginger. The scent reminds her of that long-ago Christmas ball, and five-year-old Cissy nibbling her sugared ginger sunburst without dropping a crumb.

"She's of good family, then?"

"I think I'd need to know whom you mean."

"Hannah Abbot. The apprentice."

"Oh, quite good." Andromeda frowns, thinking about how to put this so as not to insult her hostess. "They're broad-minded, of course, so a Muggle-born _of distinction_ needn't worry exceedingly about a proper reception."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley has an odd expression on her face—somewhere between careful neutrality and offended surprise. Apparently, she had assumed that the questions about proper stock were on one side only.

Andromeda knows that the balance will have to be weighted rather heavily, and so it is: there's Justin's distinguished war record; his work with the Remus Lupin Foundation (which an Order sympathizer of a radical stripe might approve); his conspicuous dedication to good citizenship in the wizarding world (the discreet but substantial donations to St. Mungo's for war veterans' rehabilitation). She's certainly overheard enough remarks comparing him favorably to Lucius Malfoy. But the fact remains that Lucius, for all his misdeeds, is _one of them_ and Justin is not.

She isn't sure if this should be spelled out, and rather suspects not. In good Slytherin fashion, she keeps silent rather than utter superfluities.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, "So. There would be questions, wouldn't there, regardless of whom he wanted to marry. Even… someone from our side of the border."

Andromeda nods. Best to let them reason it out and merely confirm the conclusions.

"For example, Miss Granger. Her Order of Merlin is First Class. And I understand she is a protégée of some very distinguished Purebloods."

Andromeda nods, though Hermione Granger is quite a moot point; she's spoken for, and twice, if Rita Skeeter (and Andromeda's own observations) prove correct.

"I understand that she's never chosen a wizard who wasn't a Pureblood." Andromeda frowns, and realizes that Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is right, even if you count the ones with whom Rita linked her: there's Ron Weasley, and his brother Percy; there's Cormac McLaggen and Draco Malfoy and Neville Longbottom. Purebloods all, indeed. The posthumous link with Snape is too dubious to credit, or he would be the only half-blood in the lot.

"I'm not sure that's a conscious choice on her part," Andromeda says.

"But it would suit her political interests," Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, not disapprovingly. "And this Hannah Abbott..she's a half-blood."

"With excellent prospects. And in any case, a half-blood's a better choice for the Keeper of the Gate. Half-bloods know both worlds." She adds, "Old Tom's a Half-blood."

"And their children would be…"

"Half-bloods."

"And if he were to marry Miss Granger, what would their children be?"

"Muggle-born. It isn't until one marries into our world that the children count as Half-blood." She says, "Of course it makes no sense. I certainly wasn't thinking of that when I married my late husband. But my daughter was born with a rare gift that hadn't shown in our line in five hundred years."

In fact, if one were to credit eugenic considerations at all, the late war was a double tragedy so far as it deprived wizarding Britain, by death or by exile, of some of its most vigorous hybrid stock. The only living children of the Black line are Teddy Lupin and Draco Malfoy, and Draco's parents are widely rumored to have been half-siblings. (Though _that_ bit of gossip she isn't about to share with a Muggle matron; it would be letting down the side.)

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, "So—hypothetically speaking. Would you have let your daughter marry one?"

Andromeda frowns. "One what?"

"One of us. Mudblood." Andromeda winces as if at a slap.

"Well, one ought to speak plainly. That's what they call my son, and I'd wager that's the word they used before some mincing Victorian said 'Muggle-born'. Symmetry, don't you know: Pureblood, Half-blood, Mudblood." She looks at Andromeda. "Hypothetically, of course. Your daughter and my son."

"Half-blood and Muggle-born." Andromeda has _manners_, and she won't soil her mouth with Aunt Walburga's epithets. "Not that it's the main consideration, but on that head alone I'd have had no objection. Your son's a fine match. The Black line… had rather languished. Cousins oughtn't to marry cousins for too many generations."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley raises an eyebrow. Andromeda continues, "I'm one of three sisters. I'm the only one who married a man who wasn't my third or fourth cousin. My parents and my aunt and uncle were keeping our first cousins in reserve as bridegrooms. My aunt was averse to the name dying out in the male line."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley seems satisfied with the answer. She adds, "I do suspect that a genetic counselor would agree with you."

(Andromeda is taken aback at the bluntness of the pronouncement, and then she remembers that Mrs. Finch-Fletchley would appear to favor medical charities on her own side of the border, and in any case wasn't particularly flustered by the more gruesome details of Arthur Weasley's report on the reprisals at Ottery St. Catchpole.)

Andromeda says, "If I may..?"

An assenting nod from Mrs. Finch-Fletchley gives her leave to continue.

"If your son were to take an interest in Miss Abbott, there would be challenges on both sides. But altogether, the way our world is going, it's a fine match. If he intends to marry on _your_ side of the border, that would actually be quite a bit harder."

"Ah yes, the Ballad of Tom Riddle," Mrs. Finch-Fletchley replies. "I quite agree." She offers the teapot once more.

Andromeda accepts the offer. The tea is really quite good.

So it does appear that Justin has declared for Hannah Abbott, and Andromeda is left to consider the social implications of that match as Justin returns from his urgent business with suspicious good timing (of course, a Muggle parent and a magical child… it's really not a fair contest). Andromeda wonders what sort of trouble Justin was as a child, though it's hard to think of "trouble" when she's sitting opposite this very well-behaved schoolboy with the curly hair and what she realizes would be a rather winsome face were it not for the scars.

This is Justin's flat, apparently, and Andromeda realizes how very thoroughly it has felt like his mother's territory. Now that he's returned, he is acting more the part of the host. He offers to show her the premises; there are some fascinating architectural features. His mother nods, with a sly and judicious smile that reminds her disquietingly of Augusta Longbottom.

One of the features is a staircase flooded with light; another, the one that really was meant, is the peculiar tiny room that opens onto a space as vast as the Potions classroom at Hogwarts. He explains that they've been holding a Potions revision group, for the ones who don't care to go up to Hogwarts; the membership is predominantly Hufflepuff (as the group at Hogwarts is predominantly Gryffindor) and there are some number of them who were in exile from Hogwarts for one reason or another. They've been taking counsel with Hogwarts faculty nonetheless; Minerva McGonagall has been most helpful with their revision for Transfiguration. Hannah Abbott, for example, had been away from Hogwarts for almost two years, for reason of her mother's death… and she had taken the job at the Leaky Caludron almost as a fill-in, and (there's a flicker of pride) within three months had been asked to be Tom's apprentice.

Justin has no doubt what's been discussed, and his mother, she would suspect, knows as well that he knows. He's looking at her with something akin to gratitude.

The afternoon light, soft and wintry and dove-grey, makes the whole house look like one of the more felicitous works of Reason; the tall slim fireplace in the drawing-room and the mirror above it; the delicate chandelier on its chain, the tall thin windows with their sheer curtains and heavier drapes, the Persian carpet on the floor, the slim legs and inlay work of the side tables. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley sits down once more in the drawing-room, once they've made the circuit of the flat.

Justin says that he's been to see Nigel Black at St. Mungo's and he's healing admirably well, though he's still obsessed on the point of Hermione Granger.

Andromeda says that's regrettable, because he's not going to get his way on that one.

Justin says that he's recently come to see the _family resemblance_, and it's no good to tell him that something's not a good idea. The Black brothers have always been like that, though the older of the two has been far more successful in turning his recklessness to account. Justin explains what it is he's about, but it's some sort of chicanery with Muggle money so arcane that Andromeda has to put up a restraining hand.

Next full moon, Nigel will be at St. Mungo's, along with the rest of the captured adolescent werewolves. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley finds it quite clever how it's been arranged; they've all been provided with bracelets (not easily removable, Andromeda infers), timed Portkeys that will bring them to St. Mungo's well in advance of the dangerous hours. McGonagall and Flitwick were instrumental in that solution, and in general all of their allies have been most helpful. The new wing of St. Mungo's is under construction, and in a few months they'll be able to move the lycanthropy clinic into those quarters.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says that she'll be including both the adolescent werewolves and the Hogwarts war orphans in the omnibus request to the Muggle Minister. She's been summoned to Shacklebolt's office to talk over the details. The Muggles are quite a bit ahead of the wizarding world on mind healing, though there's no reason the gap can't be closed. It's a matter of training, purely and simply, and the requisite practice.

Andromeda smiles again, thinking how very much Justin's mother resembles the traditional Slytherin, even down to the inclination to Healing. Cleverness and restraint and skillful means, the water that flows and soothes rather than the fire that devours…

… which reminds her (she thinks as she steps through the Floo with Justin) that she ought to be thinking about that duel. Cleverness and restraint, yes, and skillful means. She doesn't mean to fight it to the death, no, that doesn't do when it's two mothers of families, but in any case there are things to be put in order beforehand.

She wonders whom Molly will choose as a second, given the matter of the argument.

Justin pauses a moment on the hearth in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, to shake her hand with rather more than ordinary fervor. He tells her that his mother is well pleased with what she's learned, and things are rather looking up—except in the case of Nigel, but Nigel's going to be difficult, which should surprise no one—and she may find herself with other such consultations.

His mother also has seen to the question of a salary for her work as treasurer, and this will commence immediately, once the details have been worked out with Gringotts. That will include retroactive pay as well, for they would not have made such progress without her contributions. Now that seal has been applied to parchment on the question of the new St. Mungo's wing, there will be work enough to keep them all well occupied.

Speaking of which, Luna steps into the kitchen to tell her, there's an Owl for her from Arthur Weasley…

Justin reminds her of the meeting later that week—Shell Cottage, per usual—and steps back through the emerald flames, with rather more bounce in his step than before.

All in all, rather satisfactory news for an afternoon's work, although now it's growing dark. She smiles at Luna, feeds the owl, and detaches the letter from its leg.

ooo

**Author's note: **Special thanks to NevemTeve for a very illuminating correspondence on the emotional and social implications of the Justin/Hannah relationship, and for a lovely side-mention of this pairing in his marvelous and brilliantly concise fiction _A strange marriage,_ which among its many conspicuous virtues, is one of the most psychologically realistic Marriage Law fanfics I've ever read.


	40. Chapter 40

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

Andromeda watches the owl beat its wings through the darkening afternoon; when it has been lost to sight, she reads once more the letter from Arthur Weasley.

_Dear Andromeda_, it says:

_I am afraid I find myself obliged to beg indulgence of an old comrade from the First War. I cannot stand second for Molly, but must speak with you upon a matter most delicate, and not unconnected with your quarrel with my spouse._

_Might we meet—but in some locality unfrequented by wizarding folk? Perhaps, through your late husband's connections, do you know some Muggle location that would serve?_

_I await your reply most anxiously and meanwhile remain_

_Ever your humble servant and loyal comrade-in-arms,_

_Arthur Weasley_

She had answered in the affirmative, of course, and a second owl was winging its way to Eddie Tonks, even as she reviewed the letter and thought over the plan she had confided to parchment and charmed to be visible to his eyes only. Arthur would Floo to the Ministry (in search of a lost file-folder, if anyone asked) and thence to Grimmauld Place. By then it would be after-hours at the Ministry, and there would be few witnesses to attest that he had not returned immediately to the Burrow.

It was one of the many occasions upon which Arthur's well-cultivated reputation for absent-mindedness would serve him very well. He could safely lose an hour or even two, in the fruitless search for a file-folder that would turn up on the desk in his study at the Burrow. Molly would scold him, and all would be well.

Andromeda puts her hair in order, and checks in with Harry about Teddy… as it happens, it's Ginny who carries him downstairs, her eyes bright and her hair glowing copper under the flaring candles of the hallway. She's looking as much as possible like a Renaissance Madonna, that is if one were to imagine that figure in ginger hair, wearing a too-large rugby shirt over faded jeans, and carrying a Babe whose hair was nearly exactly complementary to hers, having settled on a shade somewhere between a deep sky-blue and electric blue.

"I'm off again," Andromeda says. "Unexpected business…"

Ginny smiles. "I've nowhere else to go just now." There's serenity and sadness in her manner, as she plants a kiss on Teddy's cheek. "We'll look after each other, won't we, Teddy?" He smiles and says, "Nish." It's his favorite word, apparently.

"Quidditch players," Andromeda says, her lips quirking in unexpected amusement. Ginny breaks into a grin.

"Seeker," she says. "There's no way he won't be Seeker. His eyes are _incredible_. And Regulus has been playing Hide-the-Snitch with him when his brother's visiting the portrait in the library." She smiles.

Andromeda thanks Ginny again, before she stops in her room to hang up her everyday robes and find some appropriately Muggle outer layers to wear to Eddie's pub. They'll be taking the bus and then the Tube, so it won't do to be other than prepared for the winter weather.

She checks the closet in Sirius's room. Yes, there's a leather jacket, and a longer overcoat… for all Arthur's Muggle obsession, she isn't sure she quite trusts him to dress inconspicuously. Well, even to her eye that overcoat is out of fashion—with the wide lapels and double-breasted cut of the 1970s—but it will do, and some amount of tweaking will do the rest.

When she comes downstairs, having dressed herself for travel by Muggle conveyances, she finds Arthur already in the kitchen, looking quite satisfactorily Mugglish, in a long overcoat so correct and anonymous in cut that she knows it will pass, and that if anyone remembers Arthur, it will not be by virtue of his eccentric costume. And given his talents for invisibility in plain sight, that means _no worry_.

ooo

Of course, what to her is a mildly unfamiliar excursion (the last venture to Eddie's pub being by Apparition) is to Arthur Weasley another voyage of exploration. If there's a point at which he might break his cover as an ordinary middle-aged denizen of the city, it's the brightness of his eyes as he looks about the omnibus, and then the car on the underground, taking in the other passengers, the darkness flashing by…

They negotiate that successfully, and then the two-blocks' walk to the pub. Eddie is waiting for them, and no sooner do they seat themselves in the private room than supper is served, and a pair of pints brought to them by Audrey, who's beaming at them with the enthusiasm she once reserved for her cousin Dora.

After shedding overcoats and mufflers, they sit down.

There's an awkward silence. Then Arthur says, "Percy spoke to me about the matter." He looks at the light catching in the rim of the pint glass, then looks up to meet her eyes; there's a momentary flash of the boyishness she saw on the train, and then the grim set of his mouth cancels that. "He was within his rights, of course. Wartime, I know, and feelings ran high—mine included." He adds, "He told me that I should have had no doubt that I had set an adequate example, and that he would know the difference between right and wrong when the moment came. As indeed it did."

Andromeda sips her pint and watches his face. Usually Arthur's thoughts are masked behind the façade of genial abstraction; today she almost can see him sorting through the words he's going to say, as if he were handling solid objects.

"Aberforth recruited him. I don't know how he knew to go to the Hog's Head, but he did… and that was _months_ before the battle. As soon as they'd started with the Muggle-born Registration Commission, in fact…"

He says, "He told me all of that, even though he hadn't meant to say a word _for reasons of safety_. The ones with whom he's keeping company are _dodgy_, let's say."

Andromeda says, "So why is he telling you now?"

"So that I'd understand that we were on the same side, and as such he had the right to demand certain answers." He says, "He is quite worried about his sister. He asked me, point blank, if I'd had to do with the Amortentia poisoning." A look of pain passes over his features, in the form of a momentary glacial stillness.

Andromeda regards him coolly. "So had you?" she asks, amazed at her own audacity and her absolutely calm voice, as if she were inquiring about tomorrow's weather rather than the ugly events that transpired during Yule.

She's never seen Arthur Weasley look so old as when she asked that question. "No, except for failing to prevent it." She has the sense of him wavering on the edge of silence, or invisibility; that's his knack, that the two are the same. When Arthur is not saying anything, no one sees him, and when he does pronounce upon a topic, there's a startle response in his listeners, as if he had in fact Apparated into the conversation rather than being there all the time.

He takes a sip of the ale, grimacing wryly at its sharp edge. For one whose palate is used to butterbeer, perhaps, it would taste bitter. Andromeda finds, to her surprise, that she likes the flavor now (she remembers the shock, years ago, on first tasting these beverages that have the look of butterbeer without its sweetness or aroma): the sharp, clean taste, compared to the cloying richness of the wizarding beverage.

At length, Arthur pushes the glass away. He's taken no more than a mouthful or two. The meal, on the other hand, is utterly familiar: shepherd's pie for Andromeda, homely and exaquisite, with the top toasted just so; a small cup of soup for Arthur, just enough to take the edge off the cold outside and the appetite he's brought from work. They eat for a while in silence. Andromeda is surprised to discover how hungry she is, but of course she's been all day from one place to another: there's Justin and his mother; there's this conference, or secret meting….

… there's a sudden shiver at the notion that she's sitting at supper with the husband of the witch she's set to duel, who has refused to produce a second, who has in fact flouted all the old rules… she can understand, even if she doesn't approve, Narcissa's scorn for the purebloods who acquire Muggle notions. It invalidates all of the old understandings; you never know where you stand with such folk. Matters of honor become much more difficult if you haven't any clear notion of the oughts. One might be a perfect cad by pretending that one is following a different set of rules, while in fact honoring none.

Arthur sets aside the empty soup cup… of course, he says, he mustn't spoil his appetite, because there's Molly waiting back at the Burrow to feed him up properly…

His quiet voice ought to fool nobody; Andromeda reckons the usual false impression of him as _basically harmless_ a patent lie if you take a look at his children. They aren't Molly's offspring alone.

At length he recalls, with an air of nostalgia , their very successful work together during the First War. It was a matter of listening, and hearing, at the right time. There were places ideally suited to that sort of activity: Andromeda recalls her disquisition to Mrs. Finch-Fletchley on the true nature of the Leaky Cauldron, and the strange little poem that stitches itself on a painted ribbon above the archway into the Leaky, and of course over the great chimney-breast: entering and leaving, its lines cryptically invoke the cauldron and the broom, insignia of wizardkind: what look like archaic housewives' kit in the Muggle world and make witches what they are… but sometimes one must range abroad on the broom, and leave the Potion to brew itself.

Such are the present times, and such were the times in which she and Arthur Weasley happened into the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks or the Hog's Head. Coincidentally, on their way to somewhere else and with all the appearance of accident, they would overhear what no one supposed that they could hear.

She was the decoy, the tall striking daughter of the House of Black, whom everyone took for Bellatrix Lestrange… she'd long since ceased being surprised at that jerk of terror in her peripheral vision. Now that Bella is dead, she hasn't managed to shake it. When will Bella's victims cease to startle if Andromeda's in the room…?

Arthur is saying that the two of them really are remarkable spectators. Everyone forgets they're there… and he's afraid he took that home with him, and took too often the observer's role with his own children. One grows used to it…

… and there were Molly's firm Views on the rearing of the children, which at first were merely her own ideas and then took precedence over his, because after all, he'd had less to do with it than she, and in any case it was the one on the ground who made the rules.

He wishes now that he'd argued that point with her. In fact, he wishes that they'd actually talked out the question of which of them would work at the Ministry and which stay home with the children.

She'd taken quite seriously the talk after the Grindelwald War about rebuilding the wizarding population.

Andromeda nods, remembering from parlor conversation in her Aunt Walburga's house, just whose voice had been loudest among those… well, which had explained why the wizards of Slytherin House had adopted the peculiar custom of discouraging witches from playing Quidditch. It was Muggle superstition, though she would have been the last one to cut off one of Aunt Walburga's rants with the information that any of her ideas were less than one hundred percent Pureblood in origin.

More things she owes to Ted. "Children, kitchen and church," he'd quoted, at first in German, and then in English. Oh, he did know a bit of Muggle history, did Ted.

Andromeda frowns, because it seems he's rather far afield from the original topic, but this is Arthur, after all, and he doesn't come at anything directly. Roundabout and widdershins, just like little Luna….

Dean had told her that Luna and Arthur between the two of them sung the storm over Ottery St. Catchpole into quiescence. How many living witches or wizards even know how to do that?

Arthur is saying that he wishes he'd not taken the spectator's position, but Molly had this knack of filling space, taking over territory, and a natural reaction was to cede it, for Molly was awfully efficient and knew better than oneself…

… of course, that was a problem, because Molly had far more energy and verve than a mere house would justify. The fortifications at the Burrow were some of the most formidable in wizarding Britain, because Molly would go out and check them every morning, and play about with adjustments. Everything had to be just so, and if it wasn't… then she did rather fly off the handle.

Andromeda wonders if Molly ever got an offer from Augusta such as the one that had been extended to Hermione… like as not, no, because at that time Alice was still alive, and Frank too—alive, as real people, rather than physical remembrances of what they had been.

She nods, sipping at her drink, because he's finally coming to it: that Molly likes things just so, and she has plans, and if she'd had scope in the Ministry, she might have met the salutary friction of large human undertakings, which would have prevented her carrying all before her… or setting the populace so plainly in revolt.

He means the twins, of course. Fred and George had chafed at their mother's authority for years, while fearing it, and bullying Percy only when they were all out of their mother's earshot. Percy was actually quite bitter on that point, how after they'd decided he was _persona non grata_, the twins had behaved quite appallingly: thrown food on him at Christmas dinner, to no objection whatsoever from his brothers and sister….

… which of course shouldn't bother him, given that it was only the last in a long line of offenses against his dignity and his person, including ridicule of anyone in whom he interested himself romantically. Now that he had moved out of that house, he had no intentions of returning.

His life was his own business, not his brothers'. Arthur agrees, of course, and he has to say to Andromeda that he's dreadfully sorry about the whole thing, because he knows that she's gone to trouble, more than the usual, in the wake of the incidents at Christmas.

Arthur had been surprised, actually, at the alacrity with which George confessed the whole thing, once asked the question. Of course, there's no penalty for it but what Arthur or Percy or Hermione or Andromeda would care to extract. George had two old grudges to settle, one with Percy (whom he still blames for Fred's death) and one with Hermione (who made a nuisance of herself interfering with the experiments for their joke-shop merchandise). That both of the two of them were romantically interested in other people, well, that made Amortentia a just punishment, didn't it? Besides, it would be a good laugh to see the two of them unhinged by lust. If it were true that Hermione were sleeping with Draco Malfoy, she deserved anything that might befall her, and Percy… well, Percy just deserved it on general principles.

Andromeda listens to this confession (for it's Arthur's as much as it's George's at a second remove). Arthur looks as thoroughly miserable as she's ever seen him; even in the days of the war he was cheerful and full of energy. It had been Molly who worried and fretted and nagged. Now…

"And what about Ginny?"

George had dosed her as well, but for some reason she'd reacted very badly… well, he guessed after a while that he was only Second Poisoner. He'd taken it to the maximum dose, of course, because for the effect he was seeking you didn't want to be subtle.

It wasn't about Ginny, of course, but about Harry—who's also to blame, but more importantly, who's a rival for his mother's approval. The success of the joke shop had almost done it—almost—but now that the war's over, it's Harry, the favored son-in-law, and George is just a minor donor to the household accounts.

George had then said something _very_ disrespectful about his mother, something that overstepped bounds so far that Arthur was obliged to have words with him. He realized, of course, that the twins had been flying just under that barrier all those years, insulting their mother and bullying their two brothers and their sister. And he hadn't taken notice, and he supposes now that some part of this is his own fault.

Nor can he take credit for unusual insight, for it's Percy who pointed most of this out to him, Percy who's more than earned the name of a grown man. Arthur's had a good look at his son's pale skin and weary eyes, and he looks years older than early twenties. Percy has spoken with him, as well, about the work that he and Hermione Granger have presented to the Minister. Things are in a bad way, a very bad way indeed.

"And who was the First Poisoner?" Andromeda asks.

Arthur puts his face in his hands, in the classic posture of despair. "Molly," he says. "She got nervous when Ginny joined the Aurors, because she didn't want to take the chance of Harry taking a fancy to someone else…"

"So she confessed, just like that."

"There was no other suspect," Arthur said, "and there was your challenge." He puts his hands on the table, and his face is frozen in a grimace that's trying dreadfully hard to be a lack of expression. "In any case, she told me everything once I asked, and said it was more than justified… for she'd turned down other offers in favor of Harry."

Andromeda shakes her head. "If you mean Augusta Longbottom, that's ancient history. Neville is more likely to marry Hermione, and I think that's an open secret now."

Arthur says, "Are you going to go through with the duel, then?"

Andromeda nods. "I see no reason not to do it. She's admitted to me that she dosed my daughter, and she's admitted to you that she's dosed yours, and her cavalier attitude about love potions seems to have communicated itself to your sons…" She realizes that she's angry, very angry indeed, for Arthur has stood by and let this happen.

He says, in a very small and distant voice, "She admitted to dosing me, you know, in the very beginning. I told her it made no difference, because I already loved her. Perhaps I should have been angrier about it. If I had… but there were _other things_. It hasn't been easy, and she's been very angry and very disappointed…" _Disappointed in me,_ she imagines he means.

Andromeda knows all too well how many _other things_ can make a husband or a wife reluctant to speak; how much did she and Ted between them leave unspoken, agree to let lie so that they might have peace—or its imitation?

"She's spoken to Kingsley Shacklebolt," Arthur says. "She's told him that this would be a scandal, that the _Prophet_ would make much of the forces of Light turning on themselves…"

Andromeda draws herself up. "We're not the forces of Light. We're the people who tried to hold off something worse, but that doesn't make us paragons of goodness. If we can't say that amongst ourselves, and be honest…"

"I think she's worried about what would happen if she weren't there to hold things together."

Andromeda narrows her eyes. "Then she's led you astray as to the conditions of the challenge. I did not call for a duel to the death, only to the _satisfaction of honor._ Nothing is going to bring my daughter back from the dead, but I want an apology—a heartfelt apology—or failing that, the _traditional remedy_."

Arthur consults his watch. "It's late. I'll have to be along to the Burrow… but this is not the last of this." He looks her in the eyes. "I'll be in touch, and I suppose you'll be hearing from Molly's second."

Andromeda nods, and they rise. Audrey meets them at the threshold, and Arthur inquires as to a discreet place from which to Apparate. It's all run much too late.

Audrey says, "So our cousin is coming to call."

Andromeda frowns.

"Dora's friend Kingsley was here earlier with a pair of Aurors, scouting the place." She smirks. "Cousin Draco is rather a big noise, isn't he?"

Andromeda nods; you could put it that way, if you meant a crash in the next room that told you there would be a mess to set to rights. Not that different from Dora, she supposes, in that respect…

ooo

**Author's note:** "Children, kitchen, church" is the English translation of the German slogan "Kinder, Küche, Kirche", popularly associated with the Hitler regime but actually dating back to the late 1890s and Wilhelm II. Ted is hinting that Tom Riddle brought Muggle (monarchist or fascist) notions of proper sex roles into the wizarding world. I am following this assumption, and taking Rowling at her word that the wizarding world is roughly egalitarian in its traditional sex roles, and in some respects in advance of ours.

The Cauldron and the Broom: imagery borrowed from an unpublished poem by Swallow B., shared with me in private correspondence. It beautifully sums up the truth of the Leaky Cauldron and so I imagine it, or an archaic version of it, to be painted over the gateways by way of motto.


	41. Chapter 41

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

Andromeda gathers up her things, and Audrey says that it would be quite fine if she took the short way home (by which she means Apparition), as it's begun to snow and she imagines that it's none too pleasant finding her way back… or perhaps she might want to summon the Knight Bus.

Andromeda frowns. A Muggle girl isn't supposed to know quite so much about how their world works, except that she's the relative of a Muggle-born wizard. It's a wonder things have remained secret at all… well, that was the objection to the Muggle-borns in the first place: a security risk, just like the Squibs permitted to live as Muggles.

Audrey smirks and says she's quite looking forward to meeting her mildly infamous cousin. She disagrees with Uncle Ted's nickname for him, the Clone, because while there's a resemblance to his father, she can't believe he could possibly be as annoying as Lucius Malfoy.

"I wasn't aware you had met Lucius," Andromeda says in rather icier tones than she'd intended.

The reproach rolls off Audrey like the proverbial water off a duck. "_Everybody_ knows Lucky," she says. "The man's legendary. He knew what he was about, racist git or not." The implication, of course, is that Draco is far less capable than his father, and does not compel the horrified admiration elicited by glorious and exasperating villainy.

Though Andromeda's private opinion is that her brother-in-law can't have been a truly impressive villain if he could be thwarted by an improvised expeditionary force of six adolescents who hadn't even completed their OWLs. Well, there were various theories on that head—including the one that Lucius hadn't really meant to succeed… though it cost him a year in Azkaban, one wonders if he volunteered for that raid on the Department of Mysteries to get out of the presence of his "beloved and revered" Lord.

Of course, Andromeda also suspects Audrey of a certain amount of mischievous intent, as well, and she's nervous as to the form the mischief will take.

ooo

It's funny how the bonds from the First War still weigh as loyalties; Arthur has been married to Molly for decades, but what he has in common with Andromeda—their careers as Watchers, and the patient temperament that implies—has led him to tell her things that might well read to his wife as disloyalty.

Well, as Hermione pointed out, there is no judicial penalty for the things that Molly has done. It is a family matter, very strictly private. If someone objects to what was done, then there's a duel; if not, it's a family joke. She remembers the merchandise at the Wizard Wheezes shop, which very definitely includes love potions, which are marketed to the Hogwarts schoolgirls (and, one would suspect, some number of schoolboys as well).

Andromeda shakes her head.

Audrey adds, "There was an Owl for you while you were having supper." She proffers the message, the cylinder of parchment still sealed with the Ministry seal.

It's from Kingsley, though the seal is that of the Ministry, which tells her that it's in his official capacity as Minister. She unseals it: it's brief and to the point, giving her the date on which the indictments will be delivered to Draco at Longbottom House: ten o'clock in the morning, the next day. His visit to Eddie Tonks and family has been approved for the day after that.

The message is Most Secret, for the parchment dissolves into smoke after she has read it.

ooo

Andromeda settles on Apparition, thinking of the quiet of her bedroom and study at Grimmauld Place, and how much remains to be done before the next day. Audrey insists that she's not the least insulted by her aunt vanishing from the front room, if it spares her the time out in the nasty weather. Like Dora, Audrey is aware of Pureblood etiquette, while discounting it as completely absurd.

She must be tired, because the Apparition leaves her head spinning and her stomach feeling none too steady, a feeling she hasn't had since she was seventeen and taking her first lessons. Mercifully, there is no requirement that she venture out further that night, she reflects; and then there's the screech of indignation from Aunt Walburga's portrait.

"Apparating into the front hall! Did your mother teach you nothing about _manners?_ Of course, you're a blood traitor, aren't you, so it's no more than one would expect."

"Aunt Walburga," she begins, and then sees the canny sparkle in the old madwoman's eyes. "With all due respect, _sod off._"

She shouldn't be so pleased with herself for something so adolescent, but nonetheless it's a satisfaction to tell someone off. There's still the question of the duel to be settled, as if she hasn't enough on her calendar, but that's nothing that's her business. Her part is to wait for the correspondence of the seconds, for the setting of the place and time. Only youthful hotheads charge into it without a second. (With a smile, she remembers that Madam Longbottom, while yet at Hogwarts, was known for that sort of thing.)

Ginny greets her at the top of the staircase with a smirk that tells her that her remarks to Walburga have been overheard. Teddy's in the other room, she says, being amused by Luna and Dean.

"You needn't worry about him just yet," she says. "They're all having rather a lot of fun." Ginny's color looks quite a bit better than it's been, she thinks.

Dean is sitting on the floor, his long legs stretched out in front of him and Teddy perched in his lap, while Luna idly flicks her wand to conduct the ballet of cartoon creatures, galloping horses and centaurs, swooping birds (with at least one phoenix among them), roaring lions and hippogriffs. Then there are creatures that are neither muggle nor magical: some sort of jolly wobbling gasbag, and things with waving tentacles and multiple eyes at the end of stalks. Teddy is mesmerized by the whole lot… and of course what he has to say to the whole thing is "Nish!"

And then when he sees her, "Mah!"

Andromeda feels a pang that it isn't Dora to whom he's saying that, and wonders if he says it to Ginny too. Of course, if every glittering thing is a Snitch, then every person who fusses after him might be Mama. When Dora was small, there was a time when every ambulatory creature she saw was promptly declared a duck—just before she lunged for it.

He's rubbing his eyes, even as he watches the enchanted menagerie whirl around him. Luna smiles, gives one last flick to her wand, slowing the dance. "He's been waiting for you, I think," she says. Teddy wriggles in Dean's arms and reaches for her as he stands to hand him over to her, and she feels him crane to watch as the creatures swoop by him, waving goodbye after their individual fashion: the horses and centaurs and hippogriffs bowing, the winged creatures giving one last beat of the wings, and the things with the tentacles… waving.

Once Teddy has been put to bed, an agreeable domestic silence settles over the house. Harry isn't home yet, but Ginny, Luna and Dean gather in kitchen to begin the preparation of their evening meal. Percy arrives from the Ministry, with the customary grim crease between his brows, and takes his portfolio of parchments upstairs to his room before returning to the kitchen.

The flames in the hearth flare green to admit Harry, from the Auror office, where he's worked rather too late. More emergencies, it would seem; they're _on the eve,_ and some are concerned that there may be demonstrations…

Ah yes, _on the eve_ of the indictments, and the glance they exchange makes it quite clear that Harry knows that she knows.

Then there's a second twisting burst of emerald light, and Augusta's austere features show white-hot in the flames. She asks if she might have a word with Andromeda, in private.

With the supper preparations underway, the best course is to step through the Floo to Longbottom House…

In the cavernous kitchen, Augusta's face is composed but no less furious for that. Andromeda thinks once more that she chose well in asking her to be the second, for the impressive combination of fury and discipline…

Augusta says, "I've had a word with Molly Prewett's second." She narrows her eyes. "Impudent puppy."

"Who is it?"

"Felicitas Diggory." Andromeda frowns; one of the innumerable Diggory cousins, of course… the handsome one, or one of the handsome ones, as opposed to Octavian, whose looks are better suited to comedy. But young, much too young, well under forty, which makes his choice an insult in itself when her own second is the redoubtable Madam Longbottom.

He's done it for a lark, he'd said, because he thinks that Molly is a fanciable witch, and if it weren't for Arthur …

Ah yes, now she remembers. He's the one in the Muggle Artifacts office, who made an improper suggestion to Molly at an after-work do at the Leaky, or was it the Three Broomsticks? And no doubt half of wizarding Britain knows, and while she's quite sure that Molly has no intention of taking up the offer, she's chosen this frivolous boy in order to send yet another message of ridicule.

Andromeda sighs and says, "I'd just like this business over and done. Set a place and a time, and I'll be there." It's her own fault, of course, and Ted would tell her she oughtn't to take Pureblood nonsense quite so seriously, but even if it's nonsense from his point of view, it's something which she was taught to treat with respect. Dancing, dueling, and deportment—the proper accomplishments.

(She still remembers Lucius Malfoy, age fifteen, looking at her fourteen-year-old sister with all-too-adult interest in his pale grey eyes, as she and Bellatrix circled each other in the rehearsal of deadly intent, the summer sunlight coming through the tall windows of the disused ballroom in their mother's country place.)

Augusta frowns, and adds that there's something further; Neville and Hermione want to speak to her on a _private matter. _She can well guess, but she'll leave it to them, if Andromeda has a few moments before returning to Grimmauld Place…?

Andromeda shrugs; may as well have that out of the way, as well, whatever it is.

It's in Augusta's study that Andromeda is invited to take a chair by the fire, and a moment or so later, Neville and Hermione enter. Augusta gives them a speaking look, whose full intent Andromeda doesn't read, though part of it is certainly an injunction to make it quick and not dance about the question.

The door closes behind Augusta. Hermione clears her throat, and then bites her lip. Neville shuffles his feet a bit, and then begins, "It's about your nephew."

Andromeda frowns: isn't everything, lately, when it's not about her late daughter? She waits to hear the rest.

Hermione says, "It wouldn't be any of our business, of course, except…"

Neville chimes in, "We know he's rather difficult, and it doesn't seem that you should have to carry the whole thing, not with Teddy and all."

Hermione raises her chin, and with a determined expression says, "We've promised him that we'll …" there's a momentary look of discomfiture, and then with steely resolve she continues, "we'll be there until the end, whether that's Azkaban or something else." She says, "I've seen the indictments. We'll be there tomorrow, when the Ministry serves them." She says, "As much for you as for him."

Neville says, "That means after the trials, as well."

Hermione's face has an odd expression and it's very white; she almost looks seasick, but her voice is as steady as ever. "I don't know what the visitors' policy is at Azkaban, but if you want us…"

Neville says, "And during the trials… I've already spoken to Headmistress McGonagall."

Hermione says, "We will be there every day that we are able." Even by firelight, her skin has gone so pale that it has a greenish cast. Andromeda has a chill of premonition; of course it's going to be a nasty business, with her sister and brother-in-law and nephew in the dock, but Hermione Granger does not have the reputation of a witch who rattles easily, and she's plainly disconcerted to the point of nausea. Her hands are folded in her lap in a parody of demureness, and the knuckles are white where the fingers grasp each other.

"Is there something you mean to say?" Andromeda asks, and she sees Hermione lean forward and _try to speak._

It's plain that she knows how to convey to knowledgeable eyes that she's constrained from speaking. Fidelius, no doubt; of course, she's been working on the archives all this time. Of course.

Neville says, a bit stiffly, that Rita's version of the rumors is quite unsavory, and of course he understands her hesitation_, _but the thing to know is that their intentions are honorable.

She doesn't even want to know what that might mean. This is one of those moments where it is a positive advantage to be a daughter of the House of Black. She thanks them quite graciously for their offer of help and support. (No, she's not going to decline it, for Hermione's expression tells her that it's quite likely she'll need it.)

She will be at Longbottom House at nine o'clock, unless she is required earlier.

Neville says that she's invited to breakfast.

_Breakfast with the condemned man,_ she thinks. She isn't sure if she feels sorrier for them for having chosen this part with a future prisoner of Azkaban, or (if Kingsley has told her the truth) a disgraced parolee. If indeed they plan to release him, likely it will be after an extended public humiliation; the intent of this trial will be to neutralize the political influence of the House of Malfoy for the foreseeable future, which is to say, the next two hundred years or so.

ooo

It doesn't stop, because on emerging from the study, Augusta Longbottom tells her that she's had a Floo call from Bill Weasley, on Lupin Foundation business, and offers the use of the Floo in the kitchen.

Bill's face wavers in the flames, and she sees Fleur's paler features at his shoulder. "Healer Derwent Flooed us tonight, and she'd like you to come to St. Mungo's tomorrow afternoon to talk with Millicent Bulstrode."

Fleur adds, "She thought it would be best, since you belonged to the same House." She says, "Miss Bulstrode has already made it clear she 'doesn't want to talk to any sodding Gryffindors.'"

Bill says, "Augusta Longbottom has already said she will be there as well."

ooo

The next morning dawns foggy and chilly, and even more once she's taken the Floo to Longbottom House. That venerable stone house, young though it might be in comparison to Grimmauld Place (and nowhere near so Dark) has a perpetual chilly silence. She thinks that likely it was no pleasant place to be a child, although the greenhouse would have been a compensation for Neville, given his inclinations. It's not so extensive as the ones at Harfang Longbottom's establishment outside of Manchester, but more than adequate to interest a small boy with an interest in magical plants. She still remembers Frank Sr. talking about his grandson's accomplishments in that line.

Breakfast is silent. The richness of the fare does not quite compensate for the unspoken dread that amplifies the clinking of tea cups in saucers and the chink of forks against earthenware plates.

At ten o'clock, they are ranged on the Victorian sofa in Augusta's formal parlor, like a family portrait. Hermione sits next to Draco on the sofa, her hand on his, and Neville sits on the other side, his hand resting on Draco's shoulder, as if he were a small child rather than a lanky adolescent.

Draco's expression, as usual, overshoots _dignified_ to land somewhere in the vicinity of _insolent._ Neville's features have settled into something implacable, like a monolith, which makes her believe for the first time that this round-faced boy actually did face down the Dark Lord. Hermione has an expression one might at first read as boredom, like a Muggle commuter waiting for an overdue train. It's only the strain at the corners of the mouth, and the lack of color—she's as pale as Draco—that betrays the sense of something dreadful bearing down on them.

At ten o'clock precisely, there's a resounding _crack_ outside, and then a firm rap on the door. Draco sneers and mutters something about the Ministry exercising its usual bad form. Augusta Longbottom opens the door to the visitor with an expression that says she more than endorses his view of the matter.

The messenger is a Pureblood wizard, of course, a distant Black cousin, and as such vaguely familiar to Andromeda; all that she remembers is that she once overheard him at one of Aunt Walburga's soirees explaining with pedantic care the _precise _degree in which he was related to the Rookwoods, the Selwyns and the Gaunts, and by way of the latter, to the most politically agreeable of the Founders.

Even at this late date, she wants to retort that he can have no idea of Salazar Slytherin's actual convictions, as _nothing ever was written down,_ as the Ministry representative recites the forms with obvious relish, asking if the wizard to whom he speaks is in fact Draco Abraxas Apollonius Paracelsus Brutus Malfoy, son of Lucius and Narcissa.

She sees Hermione's mouth quirk in inadvertent amusement, at the number of Draco's middle names. Of course, that expression swiftly vanishes, to be replaced with suppressed fury, as the sealed parchment is unfurled with a crisp rattle, and the indictment read in full.

After the fact, it's only scattered phrases that stay with her: _crimes against wizardkind… repeated use of the Unforgivable Curses on Pureblood and Half-blood witches and wizards… Head of the Inquisitorial Squad at Hogwarts under the direction of the accused war criminal Dolores Umbridge… __in his capacity as assistant to the late Bellatrix Lestrange, standing third in succession to the defendant Tom Marvolo Riddle, who styled himself Lord Voldemort._

Draco's pale insolent face does not change expression—a mask of boredom—as the particulars are read. Hermione is biting her lips, and Neville is looking stonier by the moment.

The silence that settles after the last of the accusations weighs on her like stone, not the stone of Longbottom House but of Azkaban.

Draco lifts his chin and looks at the Ministry functionary and recites in his clear tenor voice that he hears and acknowledges the charges made against him by the Wizengamot and the Ministry for Magic, under the direction of the War Crimes Commission. He will be pleased to meet those in court, this fifteenth of March in the one thousand nine hundred ninety-ninth year of the Common Era.

The Ministry's representative makes a slight courteous bow, and says that his reply will be conveyed to the Wizengamot.

After all of the ceremony, after the departure in a sweep of splendid archaic robes, after the door has closed and the showy crack of Apparition is heard once more (through three doors and the stone walls of Longbottom House—_what bad taste,_ she reflects), Hermione Granger is the first to break the silence, with a short, hysterical laugh.

"Voldemort's number three," she says. "That's bloody _ridiculous._" She leaps to her feet and starts pacing furiously. "Those _fuckers._" Draco glares at her, and Neville winces at the invective.

She turns and glares back at all three of them. "It's high time this nonsense was put to rest. I can't believe this place. _Barbarians,_ all of them."

"So you're going to take up for me as if I were a rogue Hippogriff," Draco says with a smirk. "I'm touched, Granger." For a moment, Andromeda thinks that Hermione is going to strike him, and then she starts laughing.

"Malfoy, you have a twisted sense of humor."

Augusta Longbottom re-enters the room, this time bearing a crystal decanter and five tumblers. As she pours a generous measure into each, Andromeda realizes that she did not see her leave.

"It's early in the day yet, but I think the occasion merits it."

All assembled assent to the proposition, accepting the tumblers in silence.

ooo


	42. Chapter 42

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

Andromeda looks at Draco and Hermione and Neville and Augusta, who all have closed their eyes to drink from their tumblers of firewhiskey, as if they were partaking in a pagan rite. If that were the case, she ought to be pouring out a bit of this by way of libation, to the bloodthirsty Fates or the Furies, whoever is writing this hideous farce. No, it's no one so esoteric, neither spirits of the air nor messengers from Olympus, but those idiots in the Ministry.

Kingsley. Well, no, Kingsley is not one of the idiots, but he most certainly isn't winning the battle. On the other hand, he has wrung a small concession, tomorrow's visit to Eddie Tonks.

She takes a sip of the firewhiskey, luckily _only_ a sip, because it's the real thing, that sends tendrils of nearly unbearable heat through her sinuses and, she would swear, out through the top of her head (she wouldn't be surprised if the ceiling were scorched) and once more she remembers Ted's welding torch, throwing sun-bright metal from its tip like a wild-magical perversion of _Lumos._

She opens her eyes and isn't sure at first if it's she or the others who have swayed, and then she steadies herself on the chair and it's definitely they, no, mostly it's Draco, wearing an uncharacteristic sloppy grin and holding a nearly empty tumbler. The idiot boy has _bolted_ the stuff.

"You're _drunk,_" she says, in the censorious tone that she can't help, because after all she's guardian to this regrettable creature, her sister's child.

"No," he enunciates carefully, "I am not _drunk._ I am _doomed._ I am going to die in fucking Azkaban and there's nothing anyone on earth can do about it."

He's quite drunk—well, Augusta's finest reserves are very potent (even the sip she's had has gone to her head with astonishing rapidity)—and his tone is jaunty and careless. He knocks back the last of it, as Hermione narrows her eyes at him and visibly resists comment.

It's Neville, actually, who says, "Sit down, Draco," and to Andromeda's surprise he obeys, sitting on the Victorian couch in the posture of a good little boy.

The loose, lopsided smirk persists, as he says conversationally, "I _hate_ firewhiskey, you know." Andromeda suspects that her sister and brother-in-law did not indulge themselves in liquors of that sort. _Power_ was the thing that deranged their senses, not anything distilled or brewed by mortal hand.

Hermione looks at Draco as if measuring him, as she sips her drink, slowly, in an altogether too knowledgeable way. At length she says, "Well, that's that until the trials, I suppose."

Draco says, "There are the NEWTs." He's looking longingly at Hermione's firewhiskey tumbler, a glance that's intercepted by Augusta, who gives him a quelling look. Even through a drunken haze, _that_ registers on him. He lifts his chin and meets Augusta's eyes and says, "_Ars longa, vita breva._ I _could _be drunk the whole time. It's only two months, after all."

Neville winces, as well he might; one doesn't trifle with Augusta Longbottom, and the look in her eye says as much: _Think again, my lad._

Draco smirks, having successfully tempted fate, and says, "Or I could revise Potions." Andromeda must admit that his posture is admirably straight, given how very drunk he must be. He lifts his empty tumbler to Hermione, as if in a toast, and says, "I _shall_ trounce you, Granger."

She clinks her glass against his—the dull clack more than audible—and says, "We'll see about that, Malfoy."

It's ritual, the address by surnames, for the _feeling_ in the room runs quite counter. It shows in Neville's solicitous glance, which rests as always on Hermione, but encompasses Draco as well; Hermione's look of satisfaction at his defiance; Augusta with her eagle's smile, Augusta who always knows the facts of the matter even if she does not speak them.

ooo

Augusta dismisses the young people to their business, so that she and Andromeda can confer before their visit to St. Mungo's in the afternoon.

She explains to Andromeda that young Boudicca has quite specifically invited them in their character as senior Slytherin witches, as the girl won't hear of a visit from anyone not of her House. She _tolerated_ Bill Weasley and Lavender Brown only for the scars on their faces.

Quite separately, Augusta's old school friend and Potions partner has asked her to intervene as well. Horace Slughorn despairs of the future of their House, even as he continues to deploy every resource of charm and connection to salvage it. The late Tom Riddle wrapped himself in the mantle of Salazar Slytherin, woke the Founder's basilisk from its sleep, and in every way possible made the emblem of the House an object of terror…

Andromeda reflects aloud that Slughorn seems to feel _personally responsible,_ in a way that quite genuinely puzzles her.

Augusta says it oughtn't, if one's been watching the Slytherin common room as she has these eighty years and more. (Portrait-Emily, of course.) Horace never could resist a pretty face and an insinuating manner, and for all his nominal chastity with his young male protégés, he's been seduced more than once, most notably by the future Dark Lord.

Of course, he would surround himself with boys, in imitation of his Muggle counterparts; had there been a leavening of rowdy Quidditch girls or fiercely aspiring young scholars like Minerva and Boudicca in the Slug Club of the forties… well, that might have dissipated some of the atmosphere of incense and secrecy, but Horace in his infatuation wouldn't hear of it.

Horace had given in to the Head Boy in the matter of Emily's Quidditch portrait, not that he could do much more than banish it to the gloomy end of the common room.

Andromeda says that it would seem the wizarding world, when it borrowed from the Muggles, always took the worst things.

Augusta's smile is all bones, as she says that's not witches and wizards, but the two-legged folk in general. Bad ideas travel fast, and fools are thick on the ground in both worlds.

ooo

They are just finishing their conference when there's a knock on the door of the study. It's Neville, telling his grandmother that they will be setting off on their walk.

"Mind the weather and your watch," Augusta says, adding that the elf will be offended if its duties as chaperon make it late for the preparation of luncheon.

Andromeda is momentarily puzzled, until she sees that it's not only Hermione and Neville bundled in Muggle walking clothes, but Draco as well, in an eclectic costume that seems to have been borrowed and transfigured from old things of Frank Senior's; she recognizes the heavy woolen jumper and the sturdy walking boots. The dark colors, flecked with both dark green and ruddy notes, heighten his blond pallor and make it glow, as once they set off the round-cheeked rosy cheer of Neville's grandfather.

The dark inimical elf hovers in the shadows, at the edge of vision. Andromeda wonders aloud what any Muggle ramblers they meet will make of that.

"Oh, they're used to odd things," Augusta says, in an altogether offhand way that recalls to her Kingsley's remark that in the North, it's more the Statute of Discretion.

ooo

After the usual hearty luncheon at Longbottom House, at table with Hermione and Neville and even Draco looking rosy and cheerful from their tramp in the snowy weather, Andromeda and Augusta set off for St. Mungo's.

Andromeda worries momentarily, because Draco is wearing a look that's most definitely _mischievous,_ with which he has been favoring both Neville and Hermione throughout the meal.

Augusta says with brute simplicity that the boy is as good as a Squib, and in any case there's the elf, and… with a smirk of her own, that makes Andromeda wonder what young Emily _did _get up to in her Hogwarts days, adds that what young Malfoy is contemplating is not escape-far from it.

ooo

The committee that awaits them at the Spell Damage ward is rather larger than Andromeda had anticipated: Horace Slughorn and Boudicca Derwent, as expected, but as well Minerva McGonagall and Kingsley Shacklebolt. McGonagall's presence is expectable, she supposes, given that Millicent was one of the students nearly killed in the reprisals against one of the Houses under her care as Headmistress; Kingsley's presence, of course, is far from surprising given the strategic importance of the Werewolf Question, now that Nigel Black has joined the ranks of those monsters or unfortunates. Bill Weasley, Lavender Brown, and Justin Finch-Fletchley represent the Remus Lupin Foundation, and Padma Patil is absent only because of a prior engagement.

More surprising are Rolanda Hooch, the Hogwarts games mistress, and Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, the taciturn healer of magical creatures who filled in from time to time teaching Care of Magical Creatures at the school, every line of her _no-nonsense _in the steely Teutonic manner that makes McGonagall's severity look like the affectation of a porcelain doll.

From the few mentions by Harry, Hermione and Ron during her stay at the Burrow, Andromeda had imagined Millicent Bulstrode as a lumpy, ugly-minded girl of no interest to anyone.

The story told in chorus in the anteroom of Millicent's quarantine is rather different.

What that trio didn't mention, because they did not know or because Millicent never particularly interested them, was that she was one of a handful of Half-bloods in Slytherin House, along with one Tracey Davis, who is _unaccounted for_ only in the sense that she's known to be on the Continent under the protection of the step-mother of Theodore Nott, Jr.

Rather surprising, Augusta says with the savor of a connoisseur, some of the alliances that have taken shape in the clearing smoke of the post-war: the son of a Death Eater engaged to a Half-blood, the Muggle side of whose family had come under the protection of the Order during the war.

Of course, the four world wars, wizarding and Muggle, that she has known in her lifetime all have _surprised_ her with the chaos and turnabout of their aftermath, so she ought long since to have ceased being astonished.

Rolanda Hooch says that Millicent Bulstrode had bid fair to be a splendid Beater, except that she'd sorted into Slytherin House.

Augusta said that portrait-Emily had had more than one conversation with the girl on that subject, and told her that she might still try out after Hogwarts. It's still a possibility, after the lifting of the embargo.

Minerva McGonagall said that she'd thought little of the girl than that she was one of Pansy Parkinson's female thugs. Slytherin House was its own world, and its erstwhile Head of House, Severus Snape, had done much to keep it apart. To her regret, she realizes after the fact, both for Millicent and for her late colleague.

Professor Grubbly-Plank said that she'd seen the girl but briefly, during the Umbridge regime at Hogwarts, but had been favorably impressed: she kept bad company but, once taken aside, she proved a solid, sensible girl. She had passed the animal Healer's threefold test: she'd kept her head with the Hippogriffs, the Nifflers and the Unicorns. Grubbly-Plank had warned her off Umbridge, as much as one could in those days: _cat people aren't always good people._ It was a pity the girl hadn't listened, at least then.

Horace Slughorn says that Millicent kept her head about her, as well, during the evacuation of the children of Slytherin House. In the ominous silence of the hour before battle, she Side-Along Apparated to safety one group after another of terrified little ones, and stolidly returned for the next, even as the first waves of the enemy roared toward Hogwarts, Death Eaters and giants and horrors from the Forbidden Forest.

Once the children were gone, she had helped him to direct the incoming waves of reinforcements, including the ones who scarcely spoke English.

Grubby-Plank recalls with a wry smile that she'd been summoned from the fringes of the battlefield to interpret for a madcap gaggle of Bavarian wizards with carven staffs and crowns of oak-leaves. They'd gotten word of the battle, somehow, while on a ramble through the Black Forest, but they hadn't much in the way of English and Millicent had only spell-caster's Latin.

Bill Weasley adds that Millicent's first waking word in the hospital had been for the whereabouts of her familiar, Checkmate, who'd gotten lost in the confusion of the battle…

Rolanda Hooch smiles her hawk's smile (the impression of the raptor reinforced by the yellow eyes) and Andromeda wonders for the first time how close is the degree of kinship between her and Augusta.

The cat is no fool, Rolanda says; he found himself a cozy berth at the Hog's Head, and has established himself as rat-catcher general to Aberforth Dumbledore.

Of course, if cats were witches, they'd all sort into Slytherin House.

Kingsley adds that Slughorn's petition for the Order of Merlin, Second Class, has been approved by the Wizengamot, if for no better reason that they've recently upgraded Snape's posthumous award to First Class and there is political need of some number of _living_ Slytherins to fill out the ranks of Merlin's knights.

Augusta Longbottom raises an eyebrow at him, and asks when it was she died, as she never received the telegram.

Kingsley looks awkward for a moment, and says he meant some number of _junior_ Slytherins, those of the _rising generation…_ Not that Miss Bulstrode's award is other than fully deserved, of course…

Andromeda lets him squirm for a bit, and then helpfully supplies that in the public mind, it seems that once one is a blood traitor, one ceases being a Slytherin. Augusta's Order of Merlin is chalked up to the Order of the Phoenix, which she never formally joined, rather than the House into which she was Sorted.

ooo

Millicent, in the flesh—and on her square frame, there isn't much of it—is gaunt, and sardonic, with a cold-eyed look that doesn't sit well on the face of an eighteen-year-old girl. She's propped up in bed, resting on fat pillows and looking as if she'd collapse without them; she's only a sketch of the burly girl she must have been at Hogwarts.

By way of preface, she says that yes, she's been among the werewolves, but not of them, and she's quite tired of the topic, thank you. She'll tell what she knows, for she has no desire to have Dark Creatures roaming about.

She knows what they intend, those sentimental do-gooders of the Remus Lupin Foundation. Nonetheless, they can be assured she'll do her part to get the job done.

In return, she wants to know, frankly among themselves as Slytherin witches, exactly what _her _prospects are in the post-war, especially as she's read the casualty lists in the _Prophet_ and learned how much of her family is dead.

No little thanks, it would appear, to some of her late housemates, or their parents. Pansy Parkinson is dead, but if she weren't, Millicent would be _making sure of her_ for what Pansy's father did to Millie's Muggle grandmother.

Millie is amused (though her expression says otherwise) to learn from the _Prophet _that Draco Malfoy the braggart baby Death Eater has found new employment as plaything to Granger and Longbottom. That's a laugh, but everyone knows the Malfoys are bloody unsinkable. Draco can't help himself in whoring after the Power of the moment. His inclinations are hereditary.

As proof of which, she tells an obscene joke about Lucius Malfoy, Dolores Umbridge and Voldemort, that's apparently current amongst the adolescent werewolf gangs.

Andromeda winces at the rather indelible (if physically implausible) image thus called up, even as she thinks she oughtn't to have the least regard for her brother-in-law's nonexistent honor. It can't be helped, though; what's bred in the bone…

It's tiresome, and tiring, to deal with all of this adolescent animus, whether it's belligerent Millie or drunken Draco. After being a good listener for some minutes, she says, "Let's be sensible, then. They don't speak ill of you, the ones out there. What is it _you_ want to do?"

Millie compresses her lips and sticks out her chin, and through the mask of her very different features Andromeda recognizes her nephew's mannerisms; he appears to have set a fashion in his House, at least for gestures of pointless defiance and sulkiness.

Andromeda persists, "There's Quidditch, of course, once they revive it; Madam Hooch speaks well of you."

"Quidditch is stupid. And they wouldn't let me in school." Millie isn't looking at Andromeda, but into the fluffy blankets draped across her belly.

"Madam Hooch spoke well of your abilities, and said you might try out once the embargo is lifted. One needn't have played at Hogwarts, you know, to qualify for a team."

Millie says nothing, but the lowered face might be hiding tears.

"It's all ruined," she says. "They won't let me do anything. I'm a dirty half-blood or else a dirty Slytherin. There's no winning."

Augusta says she'll have none of that; one must buck up, and face things bravely, and in any case she suspects Professor Grubbly-Plank wouldn't refuse her, if she were to apply as an apprentice.

Millie raises her head, and for the first time there's a hint of light in her eyes.

ooo

Andromeda would consider it a successful day, all around, except that on returning to Longbottom House with Augusta, there's a visitor waiting, whom the elf has detained in the front room with tea and walnut cake. He's wearing traditional robes, and his handsome, sharp-cut profile belongs on a Roman medallion or else an effigy of the perfect English schoolboy, only somewhat grown up.

He shakes his head to flip his overgrown ash-blond fringe out of his eyes, and Andromeda knows who he must be before he even introduces himself. The resemblance to his late cousin Cedric and his uncle Amos is unmistakable. He turns to her with a flirtatious smirk, and she thinks he might be a cousin to Gilderoy Lockhart as well, if only in spirit.

"Felicitas Diggory, I presume," she says, with the slight bow that all proper Purebloods recognize as a refused handshake. In his capacity as second, he _ought_ to be addressing Madam Longbottom, but he's looking directly at her.

"Madam Tonks, you must be," he says. "They said you looked just like Bellatrix Lestrange, and so you do. Just as fanciable, I'd say, though in a nicer style—one needn't worry about being hexed straightaway—though personally I'd rather a bit more, you know, to take hold of on a cold night."

_Bellatrix would have made short work of him,_ Andromeda thinks, as she glares at him and he fails to take the hint that his estimate of her charms—even his presumption in offering it-is far from welcome.

"So Molly—Madam Weasley, I mean—would fancy an evening engagement for the affair of honor, something nice and traditional, on a moor or heath. She hopes tomorrow night wouldn't be too inconvenient, as there's chores in the morning and shopping to be done…"

Andromeda had not previously considered her capacity for casting a proper _Crucio;_ her estimate at present would be that she could manage something local, a raging toothache, perhaps, or a like pain in some other body part. That is, if she were the sort of witch to indulge herself in Unforgivables…

Augusta Longbottom steps in, and says, "You're a second to a witches' duel, my lad, not a beau at a Pureblood ball. Tomorrow evening it is, then, and I'll convey that to Madam Tonks, and thank you to be off before something _befalls_ you in a place you might like to reserve for private use."

ooo

**Author's note:** Special thanks to Kelly Chambliss, Swallow B., and Tetleybag for bringing to life Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, who lives in a handful of lines in Rowling's original story. See (links on my Favorites) Tetleybag's _Witch Night_ for back-story on Grubbly-Plank and Hooch, as well as a brilliant re-creation of the Muggle and magical worlds of England and Germany in the 1930s; and Swallow B's vignette "Unicorn People" for Grubby-Plank's account of Millicent with the magical creatures. "Cat people aren't always good people" is a direct quote from that tale.


	43. Chapter 43

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

**Author's note: **Thanks once more to the faithful readers of this rather too long delayed chapter. Real Life (so-called) continues to present firm opposition to the exercise of imagination.

ooo

It's early in the morning when Andromeda steps through the Floo into the kitchen of Longbottom House once more. Augusta Longbottom greets her, and tells her that Draco has breakfasted with her and then retired to his room to _dress_ for the visit to London.

_Dress_, it turns out, is best translated as _preen and fuss._ When she is admitted to the presence, Draco is wearing Frank Senior's cut-down and transfigured clothes, and a thunderous expression.

The glower isn't for her, it would appear; Hermione is sitting in the chair in the corner, with a bored expression. "You're repeating yourself."

"It _won't do._ I look _ancient._ And it's Longbottom's grandfather's togs."

"I've already told you. Retro will do nicely." She gestures vaguely with the hand that's not holding the wand. "One would think you were interested in making an impression." She smirks. "Should I be jealous?"

Neville adds, "Don't encourage him."

Hermione says, "We got up early for this. Draco, _calm down._" She flicks her wand lazily, and the pleats of the dark-grey trousers rearrange themselves. "Now that's the _last time_."

Andromeda thinks that Draco is dressed well enough for the Muggle world. Frank's things are a little old-fashioned, but nonetheless very fine of their kind; the Longbottoms have a name for understatement.

Draco is turning in front of the mirror over the fireplace, craning to see how his clothes look. Yes, Narcissa's child to the life; she remembers her sister doing the same—well, not that Lucius wasn't a peacock in his own right—and she hasn't thought about it until now, but she supposes that it wasn't only from Ted that her daughter learned that disregard for appearances, for ornament, for the surface matters of life.

Consider what she's wearing just now: that favorite old shirt of Ted's, jeans, warm socks, sturdy shoes. Narcissa's naïve letter after her elopement spoke of all the things she would miss, if she didn't renege on this marriage that didn't exist anyway: the balls and the dress robes, the dueling lessons and the long summer evenings at their country place. Narcissa was a child when she wrote that letter: she still thought that the thing one should miss about childhood was the toys, even though growing up meant that toys were supplanted by real things.

ooo

She nods to Hermione and Neville, and thanks them for their help; they smile back at her with surprisingly adult fellow-feeling. One of these days she ought to ask, really, what the arrangement is, though she more than suspects; it's Pureblood circumspection that seals her lips, on this occasion as on others—and the presence of the subject of the matter.

Draco looks at the two of them, with his eyes narrowed. Blandly, Neville wishes him a good time at his cousin's, and he and Hermione depart, presumably to take another ramble together, as they're already dressed for the outdoors.

Augusta knocks on the open door of the study. Two visitors enter: Octavian Diggory and Philippa Bones.

She would glare at Diggory, of course, except that it isn't his fault; it's his fool of a cousin who's Molly's second. Octavian inclines his head respectfully, and Philippa gives her a curt nod and asks if she's ready to depart.

Draco is standing in the hall in front of a small pier-glass, frowning at the state of his hair and patting it down, rather unsuccessfully as the static electricity from his dry palms raises fine strands. She remembers passing him in Diagon Alley when he was small and wore his hair mercilessly plastered in place with some sort of pomade and severely parted down the center of his pale scalp, which coiffure only emphasized the sharpness of his features and made him look like a miniature, severely sculpted copy of his father, rather than a child.

He seems just on the verge of flying into a rage at the hair or the mirror or both, when Augusta's elf materializes with a dark grey cape, Frank Senior's best cloak, which is relatively unaltered; Frank was a tall, stoutly built man, but the fashion allows some latitude in drape. The cloak, appropriately adjusted, just brushes the back of Draco's heels as he walks ahead of her down the hall, Diggory taking hold of his wand-arm and Bones following up behind, with her own wand drawn.

ooo

The journey to Eddie's pub is arranged by a combination of means both Muggle and magical. Andromeda telephones ahead to the pub, on Augusta's ancient telephone (Longbottom House, ironically, was one of the first homes in the locality to feature this innovation.) On the telephone, she and Eddie negotiate the Apparition point. Bones and Diggory have both visited the pub; Bones recalls an entertaining game of billiards against Tonks and Weasley.

Bones Apparates to the pub first, followed by Diggory taking her nephew by Side-Along Apparition. Augusta brings up the rear.

Eddie beams, offers refreshments all around, though it's early in the day yet for pints. He greets Diggory and Bones by name—though Andromeda is quite sure he hasn't seen them since the party in honor of Dora's completion of Auror training—and says that he understands they're usually on duty with his nephew's parents.

Balancing their cups of tea, they say that yes, they've been granted a holiday from their rounds at the Manor. Quite nice, because they have missed this place, since…

They don't add, _since Dora died,_ but that's understood.

Jeanette pours more tea, hot and strong and black, offers milk and sugar, hands around sandwiches, and all partake.

Draco sips his tea, looking prim and severe and _judgmental,_ after the fashion of adolescents. It's Muggle, and so cannot meet with approval; it's his aunt's family, the kin of the blood-traitor, and so questionable, but the tea is quite good, and the sandwiches tasty.

The door bangs to, two rooms away, and then the entry to the front room is thrown open; Audrey, snow in her hair and cheeks flushed, smiles broadly and says, "Wotcher, Draco," in nearly a perfect imitation of Tonks' own accent.

Andromeda winces.

Draco looks up, takes in his not-cousin, and blushes. There's no question but that her glance is appraising, but friendly.

She plops herself down in the chair next to him and asks him how he likes it here, in London.

"I've been to London before, thank you," he says, rather more sharply than he ought; Andromeda reads between the lines of that, _and to tonier establishments than this. _

Audrey is as impermeable to such distinctions as her late cousin would have been; she offers to show him around the premises, after he's finished with refreshments, of course, and would he care to play?

He frowns.

Darts or billiards. No magic permitted, of course; Dora's house rules. Fair contest that way. She smirks, and adds that Dora and Charlie could take anyone at billiards and did, repeatedly; it amused the regulars no end to watch the ginger and his clumsy stage-girlfriend take up the offers of visitors who thought it would be an easy contest.

Then she adds, without any transition at all, that she hears he's quite good at Quidditch.

He chokes on his tea and glares at her.

She continues blithely to say that her da bet on the House games, too, even after Dora left school. It would have been a lark if Dora had played on her house team; she was at least as good a Seeker as Octavian's cousin had been.

Octavian nods, his mouth full of scone.

At this point Audrey notices Draco's glare—which would be quite sufficient to set things ablaze, if there were any possibility of wild magic—and diplomatically changes the subject. Darts, she adds, she's quite sure he'd be smashing at darts, billiards too—it's a game of geometry, things in space, even if it is only two dimensions. Charlie was an excellent Seeker and he was quite good at it; would cousin Draco care to try his luck?

He narrows his eyes and says that _cousin Draco_ would prefer to finish his tea.

Jeanette is looking at her daughter with a glance that would be quelling if Audrey either saw it or were inclined to be quelled.

Audrey looks at Andromeda and gives her the broadest of winks; for a moment it's Tonks smiling at her, Dora, don't-call-me-Nymphadora. The changeable color of her hair in the warm light, butter or gold or straw by firelight, the dimple in the corner of her mouth, the dark eyes: Dora and Ted, both of them, smile back at her. Except Audrey is more sturdily built than Dora was, with broad plump shoulders, ample bust and rounded hips, all of which are evident through her red velveteen top and her dark jeans.

Draco finishes his tea, demurs the offer of more, and accepts a sandwich, which he eats with small, quick, ferocious bites, still glaring at Audrey as if he'd like to sink needle-sharp teeth into his cousin, and not in a friendly way either; Andromeda is reminded of his nickname, _the ferret._ Lithe and wriggly and sharp-toothed, yes…

Audrey is beaming at him, very pleased with herself, and talking about the Ministry folk who came to prepare the ground, as well as the other visitor they had, Charlie's brother, who's _quite_ fanciable.

Draco finishes his sandwich, dabs daintily with the napkin, and says in clipped tones that she surely doesn't find a Weasley _fanciable._

Oh, she always had a bit of a crush on Charlie, but that was more because he was such a good darts player, and Dora's friend, but as for the other one—well, she has to admit she has a weakness for blokes with specs.

Draco glares, and compresses his mouth, and Andromeda is quite sure that he would be reaching for his wand to hex her if there were hope either of summoning any magic or making an impression on her, even with a hex.

Jeanette is shaking her head, to indicate that Audrey's notion of flirtation is making no headway whatsoever, either with cousin or with parents.

Audrey wouldn't be Dora's kin (or Ted's either) if she paid any attention to that sort of signal. She continues blithely on to say that it's the red hair she likes, really; Harry Potter, for example, for all his cult following, rather leaves her cold. Red hair and blond, that's the thing.

Rare plumage, don't you know: recessive traits. She learned about that in school.

Then she winks at him, and he finally understands that she's flirting with him. He frowns, and turns pink, and accepts another sandwich from Jeanette.

Audrey has a sandwich too, taking a precautionary second one at the same time, and proclaims that the cold weather gives her an appetite too. Doesn't he love a bit of snow-plenty of that in Scotland, isn't there?

Draco nods, and pretends that he isn't sliding sidelong glances at Audrey's red velveteen. Muggle dress is considered quite naughty in Pureblood circles, and the direction of those stolen glimpses gives clear evidence that her nephew is a teenage boy.

When Eddie tells them that they may play, if they like, Audrey bounces up, and pats her cousin on the shoulder (Andromeda half expects her to take his hand, as if they were both five years old) and shows the way to the billiard table.

ooo

Jeanette and Eddie and Andromeda watch the children play. At first Draco lets Audrey show him the game with a show of condescension as if he is humoring her in a spirit of purest _noblesse oblige._ She circles the table, lining up shots, sending cascades of balls into pockets with a mere tap of the cue ball.

Andromeda knows it's going to be all right when she sees Draco narrow his eyes and take the cue in hand with real decision. He's no longer humoring her; he's decided it's a real contest, and he's not going to be trounced by his Muggle girl cousin.

Audrey patters on, inconsequentially, as she lines up another shot. What would a wizarding version of this game be? Well, there would be things flying about, no doubt, and some sort of special ball that you'd have to leap over the table to seize. Too complicated altogether. She likes the simplicity of the Muggle version, though she does admit that Quidditch is charming, with all that fuss going on at once like a three-ring circus.

Just gravity, and physics, and geometry: a sweet game. Audrey loves billiards.

She's showing off, of course.

And eyeing up her cousin as he leans over the table to take his turn, as well.

Not that Draco isn't doing that when it's his turn. She flashes for a moment on the notion of a Malfoy-Tonks match, and decides it would be a very bad idea; Draco, for all his recent improvements, is still a much-indulged little boy who demands to be taken seriously, and Audrey takes nothing much very seriously. Proof enough of that in her statement that she found Percy Weasley _fanciable,_ with that air of blithe ignorance and innocence, as if she knew nothing of the long-standing feud between the Malfoys and the Weasleys.

ooo

Diggory and Bones stand to drink their tea, discreetly, at the opposite corners of the room. There are other guards as well, keeping an eye on the entrances and the exits. No one is taking a chance that a war crimes defendant is going to make an escape attempt.

Draco doesn't look like a _person of interest _or a _defendant_ this afternoon, but a teenaged boy learning a new game. Audrey is teasing him, but that's her way of friendliness, and he seems to recognize that. She isn't impressed either (positively or negatively) by the Malfoy name, or the wealth once attached to it.

Dora had the same lack of reverence, of course; and enough experience as a Half-blood to give it teeth.

That's what she remembers, of course: Dora playing billiards with Charlie in this very room; Dora playing darts, Dora with her teachers-turned-colleagues, laughing and flaunting her new shirt. The purple one, that Hermione has now, emblazoned with the slogan "Defending Against the Dark Arts Since 1149."

Indeed, it's been a long fight. The boy before her thought he wanted to be a Dark Wizard like his father; and that's all come apart. Little more than a Muggle, he is now. She realizes that she wouldn't have thought of marrying him to Audrey under ordinary circumstances, because she wouldn't like to put her niece in the way of harm, and a marriage so ill-balanced in power is a recipe for disaster. Certainly, Audrey ought not to marry the son of a Muggle-baiting thug like Lucius Malfoy…

She wonders what her sister and brother-in-law are doing right now, at the Manor, in their last months of even nominal freedom. Lucius isn't well… no, it would appear more that he's permanently damaged, and she wonders how that will play on the witness stand. She remembers the trials the last time, and the thing that sticks with her is the dirtiness of the prisoners, how they were given inhumane conditions even before trial. Ted remarked on that, of course, how no one ought to be wishing for a return to the Middle Ages, however much the slowness of _modern justice_ might annoy.

ooo

Andromeda watches her nephew circle the billiard table, lining up his shots. Audrey stands next to him from time to time, sketching with her gestures the geometry of rebound and ricochet, and Draco smiles slightly, his eyes lighting; as he prowls around the table, there's something liquid and predatory in his gait.

Audrey smiles in satisfaction at her cousin's progress, for she does not have to yield too far to let him win their first real game. It's very far from a fiercely-fought contest, of course; Andromeda rather suspects that if Audrey did not restrain herself, Draco would find himself outfaced by an opponent with a keen sense of how to play his high-strung, excitable temperament against him.

He's no less impressive at darts, and Audrey remarks with some justice that likely it's an easy game after one that requires hovering a hundred feet in the air and scouting for a metal insect the size of a walnut.

He glowers at her when she says that, with that pinched expression about the mouth that reminds Andromeda poignantly of lost Regulus. It's not clear whether that sour expression is a reaction to Audrey's impertinent friendliness (he would call it familiarity), or because she's a Muggle and nonetheless rates herself a judge of play at Quidditch, or because he's attracted to her in spite of himself. That attraction is clear in his manner; Andromeda sees where his eyes wander, to the curve of her shoulders and the arch of her haunches as she leans over the table to line up a particularly clever shot, or—with increasing daring-to the decolletage of her velveteen top.

Audrey catches him at it, too, and twits him about looking at her that way when she has it on excellent authority that he's spoken for, _twice_. (Of course, one knows that the aristocracy are a randy lot, but she wouldn't care to fall afoul of rivals who could hex her, and anyway they're _cousins_.)

He stares at her, with that ice-cold, haughty look that brings out every bit of resemblance to his father. "On _whose_ authority might you have that?"

She smirks. "Rita Skeeter, of course." She adds, eyes wide and trustful, "The very fount of truthfulness and probity, is Madam Rita."

If Draco doesn't know that she's having him on, with that look of ingenuous solemnity, then he's a very poor Slytherin indeed.

Audrey continues, "And I've lost my heart to Percy Weasley, so this is a tragic foredoomed romance, cousin Draco." She leans forward and gives him a mock-sisterly kiss on the forehead, which he's too gobsmacked to evade. "So let's drown our sorrows in another round of darts, shall we?"

ooo

As the afternoon wears on, and the regulars commence to enter the pub, Andromeda sees Draco stiffen in distrust and apprehension; and then, by the ordinary magic of hospitality, Audrey is standing close at hand and proffering pints all around (Eddie's treating her and Draco and Diggory and Bones, of course, as they're all _family_). Draco sips his ale, making a face at the bitterness, but he doesn't put it down, and his look visibly softens. The boy is altogether more pleasant with a bit of alcohol in him; it softens his spikiness. Audrey has her pint, too, though it doesn't seem to put much of a dent in her manner. She's far more sturdily built than her cousin; Andromeda wouldn't be surprised if she could pick him up and carry him about without breaking a sweat.

Draco's eccentric hairstyle and consciously _retro_ clothing excite comment: Eddie is asked, in low tones that nonetheless carry, who is the toff; he says it's his nephew. Dora's cousin, who went to the same school in Scotland.

That's entrée enough for him, being Dora's cousin, and Audrey assures them that he promises to be quite as good as Dora at billiards and darts.

There's a round of toasts in Dora's memory, and they talk about how her friend Charlie stopped around the place back in May, but apparently left again for foreign parts.

The young man who kissed Andromeda at New Year's winks at her, and asks if she'd care to play a round of darts. He and she, perhaps, against Audrey and Dora's little cousin?

The lad is a shameless flirt, of course, but amusing, and Andromeda assents. He offers to buy her a pint, but she says no, one is quite enough, for she has business afterward that requires her alertness.

"Eh, a fine lass like you wouldn't be operating heavy machinery, would she?"

"No," Andromeda says, and gives in to a waggish impulse to tell him the truth. "A duel, actually." She consults the clock over the bar, and says, "Midnight, on Hampstead Heath."

"Pistols at forty paces?" He's playing along, she can tell, and standing rather too close under the pretense of coaching her moves as she launches her dart.

"Oh, heavens no. Traditional weapons."

He smirks at her and says that would explain whence her aptitude with sharp things, and takes another sip of his ale. He watches Draco narrow his eyes in concentration and score a perfect bull's eye, and remarks that the lad's having them on, isn't he, to be saying he's never played this game?

Andromeda says Audrey only taught it to him this afternoon, but he's an athlete, played on his House team at school, and he's rather a natural at games that involve eye-hand coordination and acuity of sight.

Octavian Diggory remarks to the fellow, for the first time, that he's taking a rather familiar tone with Dora's mum.

Diggory hasn't brandished his wand, but the Muggle recognizes _undercover law enforcement_ when he sees it. He says that he's only having a bit of fun, no offense meant, and adds, with conscious gallantry, that one can't help flirting a bit with someone so fanciable—even if she is Dora's mum.

ooo

Under Audrey's sponsorship, and with the aid of a pint or two, Draco finds favor with the patrons of Eddie's pub. They play several more rounds of darts, and at the close of the evening, around ten o'clock, he's invited back, if he should find himself in London again. Before Andromeda can think to shush him, Eddie tells the regulars that there's a possibility his nephew might come to live with his aunt in London.

Draco glares at him, as if he's made a thoroughly tasteless joke.

The difficulty, of course, is that Eddie is too clever by half, and he's not under Fidelius.

ooo

Alone in the kitchen of Longbottom House with Draco (the Aurors having departed), Andromeda asks him how he liked his cousin.

Draco looks considering for a moment, his thin mouth pursed so that the curve of it recalls Sirius' razor-edged sensuality. "I'd say she's vulgar, and Mugglish…" he begins, rather more tentatively than the words would imply, "… and altogether _not the thing_, except… except she's rather nice, somehow."

He doesn't mention Madam Rosmerta, but Andromeda realizes that's the nearest comparison in their world. Audrey will carry on the pub splendidly as Eddie's heir.

He confirms his impression that he's met with Eddie's approval, and that of the regulars, by being good-natured (the pints helped) as they teased him about slumming it and playing darts. He wants to know, as well, what it was Jeanette had meant by "Prince Hal in Eastcheap."

And who might David Bowie be, when he's at home?

Hermione, coming into the room, laughs aloud at that. "Oh dear, I quite see the resemblance," she says to Neville. "He's got the bone structure to be a rock star, don't you think?"

Neville, uncharacteristically, smirks.

ooo

Now that the children have been put to bed, or left to their own devices, it's time for Andromeda to prepare herself for the evening's business.

Augusta has dressed already for the occasion, all in black with the traditional hooded witch's cloak; she's waiting, her wand tucked in her sleeve.

Andromeda looks at herself in the pier glass where Draco earlier had been attempting to school his flyaway hair into order. By lamplight, she is unmistakably the sister of Bellatrix: fierce-eyed, carven, with heavy-lidded eyes and wild hair. The all-black traditional robes emphasize the resemblance; in the absence of ornament, the essentials show through like bone.

She does not dwell on Molly's offenses, nor on the matter of the duel. That's the chief lesson of the dueling-mistress, now part of her nervous system: however much fury might have led to the challenge, one must be cold as ice on the field of honor. She remembers the disused ballroom, hung with mirrors, in which she and her sisters practiced the deadly and traditional choreography of the magical duel. In the long summer holidays, she and Bella and Cissy were taken through their paces, as the foliage outside glimmered in the dim mirrors and the unlit chandeliers overhead threw back the diffused summer sunlight.

She remembers her restiveness, her yearning to run and to fly in the summer weather outside; she remembers as well the visitors, whether it was cousin Callidora, visiting Druella while on her way to her woman friend's cottage nearby, or young Lucius Malfoy, paying a social call with his father (but, interestingly, never with his mother) who lingered to watch Cissy and Bella circling each other with predatory intent. She still remembers the way the northerly light caught in his pale eyes as he watched Cissy's long hair whirl as she circled Bella, looking for an opening for a fatal blow.

There was no love lost between Lucius and Bella, even then, and when Cissy scored the point, throwing her sister across the ballroom, Andromeda saw his lips part, his cheeks pink up and a malicious sparkle light his eyes.

It was in the dueling studio that Cissy first had caught his attention, when she was thirteen years old and he was fourteen. That summer and the next, Lucius visited with increasing frequency. Personal attraction aside, the dueling lessons were exciting to watch. The Black sisters practiced their dueling with real hexes and curses, as was the Pureblood way; they had the usual dispensation from the Trace, under the exception for _traditional cultural expression_. Dueling under the direction of a recognized master or mistress of the art was, after all, one of the social graces, and did not qualify as underage magic.

(Ted had pointed out repeatedly that this was one more way in which the Pureblood hard-liners had tipped the balance in their own favor, and how was it, then, that the Muggle-borns nonetheless could hold their own against them? Not much of a Herrenvolk were they, now.)

Andromeda holds the wand before her and closes her eyes as she executes the traditional salute and then, turns, catlike, to rehearse herself with the soothing paces of the forms that had become second nature to her, like the steps of the minuet, well before her seventeenth birthday.

In the mazes of that lethal dance, time is abolished. Behind her closed eyelids, the tall mirrors, with their reflection of blowing treetops, rise up once more. She has not been in her mother's country house for a quarter of a century, but the memory of it lives in her body, in the turn of her hips, the long-legged predatory dance of the duelist, the whirl of her robes and long unbound hair, the deep slow breaths that open up the channels of magic so she can feel its fire surging through her body, up through her legs and belly, the mortal triangle that anchors her to earth, then narrowing, gathering power, as it pours through the wrist and fingers of her wand hand. The danger and the thrill of traditional dueling lie in the irretrievable asymmetry of channeling the magic full-force through the _wand hand_. In the Japanese style, one holds the wand double-handed, just as the Aurors are taught in their combat training, but the traditional English style considers it a lapse of style.

Augusta's voice summons her back, announcing the hour: half past eleven. As is traditional, they will proceed to the field of honor by Apparition, and the seconds will confer, pacing out the ground upon which the principals will meet.

Andromeda hopes that the preliminaries will be concluded without Augusta hexing Felicitas for some impertinence. It's clear the handsome fool is quite smitten with Molly Weasley, in an altogether indiscreet and vulgar manner. She truly does wonder at his motives for taking on the solemn duty of a second; does he hope for some other form of favor from Molly?

ooo

There is the twisting and compression of the Apparition, and then a blowing darkness, with stinging sleet on the wind, which ceases as soon as she steps onto the dueling ground. Within the magical circle, the seconds already have cast weather-repelling charms. Dark Augusta and fair Felicitas, their hoods thrown back, confer by wand-light, his ash-blond locks paler than in sunlight. For a sickening moment, she sees blond Lucius, the once she glimpsed him in his Death Eater robes.

The minions of the Dark Lord had borrowed the traditional garb of duelists, but they never meant a fair fight.

It is dark on the Heath, and the dueling party is hidden from Muggles by several layers of Muggle-repelling charms, Disillusionment being out of the question since the traditional rules require that the principals be able to see each other. There must be no question of indirection or stealth; this is not guerrilla war, but a chivalrous and direct contest of arms.

Augusta and Felicitas have paced out the circle, marked now in livid light, the throbbing yellow-green of a Necromancer's pentagram. Beyond them, she sees Molly Weasley, like herself garbed in black. (At the last, she did not neglect the decencies.) She's following the steps of the traditional warm-up, just as Andromeda had done just now in the hallway at Longbottom House.

Augusta's robust contralto announces that it is time for the principals to step forward. She asks the ritual question: do they still consider their difference irreconcilable by means less than combat?

Andromeda answers without hesitation, "Yes, absent a full formal apology."

Molly Weasley stands silent, her red and gold and silver hair gleaming in the lurid light of the perimeter.

Andromeda adds that the challenged, Molly Prewett Weasley, has not denied the charges nor indicated any repentance for the offense at issue. As well, there have been impertinent violations of the traditional protocol, in light of which, she sees no reason to resign the quarrel. Honor demands that the duel proceed.

Molly Weasley has the faintest trace of a smile on her face. "Very well, then. Let the duel proceed," she says.

Felicitas Diggory proceeds with his part as the second of the challenged, by confirming the terms of the duel: to the first disabling injury, by any and all means magical (disallowing the Unforgivables), at which time the challenged may offer apology without dishonor, or the challenger declare her honor satisfied, absent an apology, if she judges the damage inflicted to be sufficient retribution.

Andromeda says in a cold, level voice, that no injury can make up for the original offense, the annihilation of her daughter's own inclinations in love and the possible derangement of her faculties, which may have led to unnecessary and reckless actions on the field of battle and contributed to her untimely death. She is not barbarian enough to insist on a duel to the death, but she will accept no less than a full apology.

She adds that what more she wants is to know _why_, although that is not a traditional demand on the field of honor. Nonetheless, it would not be scorned, should it be offered.

Molly's slight half-smile does not alter.

Augusta asks if challenged and challenger are agreed as to the terms of the duel. As if in a mirror, Andromeda sees her own nod echoed in Molly's.

Already they are moving together, breathing in the same rhythm.

"Salute your opponent, then," Augusta says, "and let the duel begin."

Augusta and Felicitas bow to each other and retreat, backward, to the opposite ends of the barrier, the line of livid light that marks the diameter of the duelists' circle. Molly and Andromeda echo their movement, facing each other and moving backward from the barrier to the verge of the circle, where they offer each other the traditional salute, wand outstretched.

Then the duel begins.

ooo


	44. Chapter 44

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

The duel begins.

Andromeda prowls the verge of the circle, as does her opponent; they move warily, keeping an eye on each other. A night duel is the most interesting of all, being pure combat; there is nothing outside the verge of the duelists' circle to distract, and even in the daylight, one of the duties of the seconds is to make certain that nothing does distract.

Andromeda watches the movement of the red-haired woman, shorter and plumper than she, and doesn't think _Molly Weasley_, doesn't even think _Molly Prewett_, only _my opponent_. All that matters, inside the circle, is the matter to be transacted there: the blows to be dealt, the honor to be satisfied. Molly's face is relaxed and neutral in its expression, as no doubt is her own; there is no animosity here, only awareness of each other. She can feel the rhythm of Molly's breathing, though each of them is still twenty-five to thirty paces from the barrier. There is nothing in that circle but the two of them, and there is nothing more intimate.

(Some Pureblood couples, the better-off, have dueling studios in their homes. It's said that nothing keeps a marriage so alive as a ritually bound exchange of hexes. Certainly, Andromeda knows that Bellatrix chose her husband after dueling both Rabastan and Rodolphus, choosing the latter because he gave her a better game.)

Molly does not speak, nor does she. There's only that catlike prowling, back and forth. Like Quidditch, a magical duel can take a very long time, especially if both combatants play a keen defensive game.

There's a shift in Molly's breathing, and Andromeda throws up a shield charm just as the forked orange lightning of a hex hurtles at her.

Very Gryffindor, to throw the first hex. Showing the colors, so to speak.

Andromeda answers with a volley of tripping jinxes, which look harmless—the mischief of schoolchildren—but can be deadly on the dueling ground, for losing one's footing throws off the rhythm. Becoming ungrounded can be as bad as being thrown from one's broom.

Molly evades them, rather stylishly she must say, with deft hops and kicks, rather like the steps of a jig. For all her matronly plumpness, she's a light-footed dancer in the ballroom. Many witches and wizards duel the same way that they dance.

For some reason, she flashes on the young man at Eddie's pub. "Pistols at forty paces." A joke. Two mothers who've each lost a child in war, circling each other in darkness on Hampstead Heath at midnight, intent on disabling injury sufficient to restore honor. Not a joke.

Molly prowls closer to the barrier, and its yellow-green light lights up her face, masklike. Another flurry of jinxes—minor, stinging ones that only graze her (there's a faint burning sensation at her left shoulder, where her shield charm slipped). The crunching of their footsteps on the dry cold ground is the only sound to be heard, the flashes of the light are silent for the most part, except where they elicit a grunt or disturb the ground; unlike the Battle of Hogwarts, the typical magical duel proceeds with nonverbal spells, for the practical reason of not giving away one's game with a change in the rhythm of breathing.

The deadliest and most interesting duels are the ones in which the combatants already know each other's style. Andromeda has an idea of what to expect from Molly Weasley by reputation only, and she herself has not met another witch or wizard in single combat since the First War.

The preliminaries feel… preliminary, like mere tickles. She's feeling out Andromeda's reactions, and Andromeda is playing a defensive game, holding blank as long as possible. There's power held in abeyance there; Andromeda can feel it, and considerable intent. Molly is impatient; she wants this _over with_, and in her own favor, but that can be accomplished with one overmastering assault, or with a flurry of distractions.

One doesn't speculate on the dueling ground. One watches, and waits, alert and receptive. The fury of the original quarrel opens the eyes and sharpens the senses, but no longer quickens the pulse.

ooo

It's one flurry of harassing petty hexes after another. Andromeda fights the impulse of annoyance at Molly _not taking this seriously_. She hasn't, from the beginning, doesn't see what she's done wrong—as if deranging Andromeda's only daughter weren't enough. Her _only_ daughter, which Molly ought to appreciate since it's well known how she prides herself on her Ginny in public, for all they don't get along at all in private…

No, annoyance is exactly what Molly intends, and if she loses her head… she remembers Mademoiselle de Saxe saying the very thing, that it was not fire but ice that prevailed on the field of honor. Indirection, watchful waiting, calm and alertness… Victoire de Saxe was tall and blonde, like her own sister Narcissa, with a cool voice and a warm-cold charm; the tale is that her distant Veela foremother chose a French field-marshal for her temporary consort…

Molly Weasley is impatient, that much is clear from the leonine pacing, and the pursed lips. It's clear that she's not meaning to be annoyed much longer.

Andromeda contemplates her options. Simple mechanical damage might do the trick. Simply unground her, and demand an end to it. She wants the explanation…

The knees… no, that's not sporting. Even with magical repair, knees are tricky and she doesn't mean Molly to carry the scars. Ted told her that some Muggles make a point of aiming at the knees with their firearms, so as to inflict both immediate agony and a lasting message in chronic pain…

No. A clean break in the femur should do the trick.

There's a hiss and crack as the bone-breaking curse finds its target, and Molly topples with a scream.

She lies very still.

Healing charms, especially non-verbal ones, take a lot of energy and attention. She ought to keep up a flurry of stinging hexes, so that her opponent cannot divert the attention for healing.

… except that Molly is _screaming_, and she can't help the ghost of Bellatrix whispering in her ear, "Oh the poor ickle baby sister is hurting, is it?" as Narcissa lay doubled up on the floor of the dueling studio screaming and sobbing…

No, it doesn't do to be distracted by ghosts.

"Do you apologize?" she shouts across the field, her voice only slightly amplified by magic. With the coiled energy in her belly, Sonorus is scarcely necessary.

"Never!" shouts Molly in return, rolling to one side and reaching for her wand, which decides the matter. (You never, ever hex a disarmed opponent; it isn't done).

Molly's nonverbal _Expelliarmus_ is met a fraction of a heartbeat later with her own as silent _Accio_.

No, it's not over.

Molly is getting to her feet, painfully. She must have healed that bone, but it doesn't mean that the pain will stop…

Andromeda sends a volley of stinging hexes at Molly, and follows up with a curse to induce vertigo, just as It hits her.

What it was she doesn't know, but after a brief interval of total blackness, she can't breathe without pain. Fire is pouring along the channels of her nerves… she didn't put up the shield in time, paying too much attention to the injury she thought she had inflicted. Mademoiselle de Saxe's calm voice says, "Mademoiselle, you must not _think_ on the dueling ground. You can cogitate upon it later."

_Great Circe and all her swine…_her chest is on fire.

She's broken three ribs. They hurt when she breathes, and she must be on the ground, because she feels frozen grass and dirt against her face. Her mouth is full of the salty and coppery taste of her own blood, and …

There's something wrong with her breathing. The lung has been punctured.

She has no choice but to put up a shield against further injury and do an assay, because if she passes out on the field of honor it will not only be a disgrace but potentially lethal. The seconds will not interfere until there is a decisive signal that the contest is over. )

Three ribs broken, and the layers of nerves that wrap the bone are screaming; pain lances through her. Roll, if she can, to take mechanical pressure off the broken side, and bend them back to their proper place before fusing… yes, it was from the dueling mistress that she learned what she knows of healing charms. Internal injuries are the worst, and she just hopes that she remembers how to do this correctly…

No, it's not her, but Mademoiselle de Saxe. She imagines those long cool fingers following the lines of the broken bone, smoothing them over like clay, stanching the internal bleeding, delicately re-knitting the spongy stuff of the lungs…

"Well, are you ready to resign the game?" it's Molly Weasley talking to her.

The bone-ends are still knitting. She can feel the splintery, ground-glass feel of the tiny arches re-growing themselves. Ted showed her a picture once, a microscopic view of bone tissue, that made her think of endless fairy caverns, column crossing column under an endlessly varying ceiling. Think of that, then, the cross-bridges stretching themselves, spider-web or spun-sugar…

Oh, the pain. And that voice, and the effort of holding the shield-charm. But if she could cook a three-course dinner while keeping Nymphadora reined in from mischief, she can manage this… ah, but Nymphadora is dead. And there's burning along her nerves: damn Molly Weasley's stinging hexes; they're hot pepper and nettles, and they're breaking through the shield. Forget that and concentrate on the bones. She needs those to breathe.

"You ungrateful inbred bitch."

If she could summon the fury, but no, she needs it for healing, because this contest is not over.

No, there's still blood … whence can she be bleeding? Not on the outside, but inside. Internal. The spleen… no, this is quite impressive. Whatever It was, it blindsided her entirely, while she was thinking about the pain of Molly's shattered femur.

Which must be in excellent repair, because the voice from across the barrier is coming from _above_, while she lies on the ground, her mouth full of dirt and blood. All of her teeth in place, at least, though the pain of the ribs and lung and spleen being repaired brings tears to her eyes. Involuntary, she knows, but she's still ashamed. Losing control of bodily functions—of which tears are one—isn't _done_, not by daughters of the House of Black.

"Mademoiselle, concentrate yourself."

_Oui, mademoiselle_, she thinks, half in the past and half in the present.

"How dare you," Molly Weasley is saying, "when I offered you the hospitality of my house!"

That woman has more cheek than the average Gryffindor, Andromeda thinks. Though they can always be depended upon to seize the moral high ground and defend it against all comers. While we snakes… well, she doesn't feel very serpentine at the moment, or maybe she's one in the Muggle religious fable, who's being trodden underfoot with an iron heel.

_Hell of a thing_, she thinks, remembering Dora's quip, _to get stomped for diffusing useful knowledge._

She has no breath yet, with which to answer yea or nay to Molly, whose voice must be even closer—toes to the barrier, she must be. It will curse her if she steps over.

"I loved your daughter like my own," Molly says, "She was unhappy just like Harry. Quite a sad thing, that other women's children loved me more than my own. Or at least minded me better. Poor little Dora, wasting her best years on schoolgirl crushes. And there wasn't a thing she could do about it or so she said. Well, I did for her, and you haven't the slightest gratitude. She would have been unhappy otherwise…"

Andromeda can't find her wand… no it's under her, poking into her diaphragm. Roll over a bit more, onto her belly, and see if she can push off … no, by all the devils in hell, her left arm is broken… in how many places?

Then roll to the right, and let the left side knit itself… the tears run down her face and to her shame she knows they must be visible, as they mix with the dirt into which she was pushed by Molly's curse, and make mud-tracks.

At last she can make eye contact. Molly's wand is still in her hand, loosely held. _No, keep that in peripheral vision; don't look at it directly. It isn't the hand but the face that tells you what's coming next, especially with this lot. _

"Did you ask her?" Her voice isn't what it was, but at least she doesn't sound as if she's about to dissolve into shrieks of pain. (The sister of Bellatrix learned early to suppress that particular reaction; it only encouraged Bella to see an opponent in pain.)

"I knew what she needed so there wasn't any need to ask. I know children, don't I, after all this time. Just like poor little Harry, who needed a mother and never had one. Poor little mite, all those years without a real mother." Andromeda feels a flare of rage, until she realizes that she doesn't know if Molly is speaking of Harry or of Dora. "He cried, you know, after the Dark Lord came back, and if I hadn't been there… it's not as if the late headmaster could be his mother. I was the only one." Molly draws a deep breath, that's half a sob. "It's lonely in that house, you know. You've estranged my husband's feelings, and stolen my daughter, and taken all the rest of them."

There are dark spots in her vision when she tries to focus on the face above her. The healing charms are drawing too much energy. Let nature take its course, then, and listen to what Molly has to say for herself.

"You've said it yourself; you raise children just so they can leave. Bill and Charlie, it's not so bad; they're good boys. Except Bill would be blinded by that Veela bitch… all shimmer and glimmer, that one; butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Truth to tell, Andromeda, I'd rather have had your Dora as a daughter-in-law. Madam Longbottom said hard words to me about keeping to our own, but I've nothing against half-bloods." She laughs, a cold brassy sound that carries on the darkness, as if they were enclosed in a crystal dome. "Would I have taken Harry in if I'd been a blood-obsessed bigot? They all say I was keen to have the Boy Who Lived as a son-in-law, but the truth of the matter is that I loved him first as a little boy. He appreciated my efforts, when my own sons didn't." She's sniffling, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief in her free hand… oh yes, a duelist doesn't let go of her wand, even if she's taken by a fit of sensibility. "Except for Percy, of course. But Arthur drove him off… Harry needed me, and your Dora needed me, and they _listened_."

The ribs are roaring with pain, but at least she can breathe now, and the bloody tear in the lining of the lung is mostly repaired; she carefully Vanishes the pooled blood…. those anatomical pictures do help, though she could probably do this in the dark. Merlin only knows, how many times she got her lung punctured dueling with Bella, who liked to see her defeated opponent writhing on the floor in agony, drowning in her own blood.

She turns her face toward Molly, all too aware of the dirt-tracks of tears on her cheeks, and says in a rasping tone (better to let Molly think she's still in more pain than she can bear: Mollly is not Bella, after all): "What about Remus?"

"I didn't mean him," Molly says. "I wanted her for Bill. Who wouldn't want a Metamorphmaga in one's family tree, after all? Your Dora was a prize… oh, a girl to be proud of, if she hadn't picked up Mugglish notions of _following her heart, _in a direction that nature never intended... but she and Bill _wouldn't_ take to each other, and he was always off and about with that Veela…"

Quarter-Veela, Andromeda wants to correct. Fleur Delacourt's grandmother was a full Veela, or so they say, but probably only half-Veela, since she married a wizard and bore him magical children… so her great-grandfather, like as not, was a Muggle or a Squib, making the great-granddaughter an octoroon-Veela… damn Aunt Walburga and her family trees, why can't she keep her mind on the question at hand?

She says nothing. Molly in full cry isn't to be interrupted, especially when one is still knitting oneself back to wholeness.

"We can't afford Mugglish ways," Molly says. "Our sons and daughters have to produce children. Your Dora wouldn't have had children, if she'd followed her own inclinations."

Andromeda smiles bitterly and shakes her head.

Molly flares, and points her wand at Andromeda's face. "She was gadding about with _girls!_ Muggle girls, too!"

Andromeda draws a painful breath, and says, "Dora could have had children even if she'd stayed with her Addie." Molly glowers at her.

"I'm sorry, Andromeda, I'm the mother of eight children. I would certainly know how children are made, even amongst the Muggles."

Andromeda smirks (she knows it's a smirk, because the situation is irretrievably hilarious). "A sperm bank, dear. When she was good and ready to have children, which wouldn't have been some years. But you would have to hurry things. Grindelwald was only yesterday, after all."

"You're hardly in a position to be making fun of me," Molly says. "I think you should slink away, like the snake you are, and leave this quarrel as it lies."

Andromeda feels the haze of pain recede, though she won't let on just yet to Molly. She lets herself fall back (wand in her loose grasp—one mustn't let go of the wand) and says, "Eight children?"

Molly's eyes blaze. "Yes, _eight_. Seven's too lucky… Charlie, and then Bill, and then Edward the squib…" She says, "Your lot may kill your squibs, but we foster ours out."

"No," Andromeda says. "The Malfoys and the Lestranges kill theirs. We blast ours off the tapestry. Or rather, Aunt Walburga does. Or did." She's feeling dizzy again, but there's really no time for this nonsense. As Augusta Longbottom says, one must buck up and cope. "So you don't apologize."

"I don't see what there is to apologize for. I did your daughter a favor. Did you want her to be a freak in her own world? She had enough trouble as it was."

"And did she complain to you about that?"

"A mother can see these things. Why should she have such a struggle, when she could simply _fit in_ with a good husband and a proper family…?"

"Then our duel is not finished." The curse she means is best accomplished while grounded on the earth, the cold and comfortless winter earth.

There's a blinding flash of light—pure indirection, actually, to mask what she's _really_ doing—and Molly is hurled to the opposite side of the dueling circle, shuddering against its stark yellow-green boundary before falling back to earth inside.

She doesn't stir for some seconds, and then unsteadily rolls to one side, leans on her elbow and glares at Andromeda.

Andromeda calls to Madam Longbottom. "The challenger has inflicted _sufficient injury_ to satisfy her honor."

Madam Longbottom nods, and bows to Felicitas Diggory, who then speaks to Molly.

"Does the challenged accept this end to the duel?"

Molly glares and then very slowly nods.

Madam Longbottom and Felicitas Diggory raise their wands to unweave the barrier, and then Felicitas drops his traditional dignity and runs to help Molly to her feet. In that moment, the picture comes clear to her, remembering that conversation of many months ago. Felictias, like many a wizard before him, is indeed attracted to a witch's power. That he spoke with clear sexual admiration of her sister Bellatrix and of Molly makes it clear to her what power it is that draws him.

While traditionally the dish is best served cold, it strikes her that piping hot might be just the thing in this case.

She says to Molly, "Did you recognize the curse?"

Molly shakes her head.

"You took my only child. I struck you sterile. You will be as a winter field, and spring will never come again."

ooo

**Author's notes:** _octoroon-Veela. _In Franco-American racial nomenclature, an octoroon is a person (frequently a woman) with one-eighth African ancestry. The term is generally considered offensive, and it carries sexual connotations, as quadroon and octoroon prostitutes were a notable feature of New Orleans bordellos of the nineteenth century.

Victoire de Saxe's many-times-great Muggle grandfather is, of course, Maurice de Saxe, theorist and practitioner of the military arts, and noted rake.

7 November 2010: Thanks to Swallow B. (private correspondence) for a correction to the mode of address of a dueling student to her teacher.


	45. Chapter 45

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

Andromeda discovers the next morning that the duel, conducted in the usual secrecy, is all over the wizarding world. It's Augusta who tells her, but it certainly wasn't Augusta who told the tale, which leaves only two other suspects: Molly or Felicitas. Given that Molly has gotten rather the worst of it from the point of view of prestige, Felicitas Diggory stands well in the way of blame…

Augusta is quite sure of it as well, and says that Molly shouldn't have chosen anyone so light-minded, but she's always had a weakness for blonds, and no discernment where matters of fancy were concerned, if she's heard aright; Andromeda remembers the shelf in Molly's kitchen, with pride of place given to volumes by Gilderoy Lockhart (winner of the Most Charming Smile award).

No, she doesn't want to think about that. There are other things that concern her, anyway: the owl from Justin about the upcoming meeting of the Remus Lupin Foundation, and the new round of paperwork from Kingsley, this set having to do with the reinstatement of Dora's pension, and the funds for re-starting her shop. Flourish & Blott's is willing to renegotiate the lease, and the work has been done already to make the old space available to her.

Kingsley wouldn't call it quid pro quo, but she knows that there are petitions quite similar to hers that have stalled for months as they work their way through the layers of Pureblood functionaries that screen the Minister from the ordinary witch or wizard in the street. It's a double-edged sword, of course; she's likely to be a target of envy, and there are already dark mutterings that you still have to be a Pureblood to get anywhere. Order affiliations mean less than they did… it seems that the old game is beginning again.

Not entirely, she thinks. There was no werewolf rights organization in the pre-war. Nor was there a rehabilitation regime…

ooo

Justin writes that they have secured housing for the adolescent werewolves, who hitherto had been living in the rough; furthermore, his mother has thought it prudent to hire a social worker and a pair of house-parents. Their meeting this month will include a visit to the halfway-house that has been established.

There is wrangling with the Ministry, of course, as to whether the children should receive tutorial in magic, as they're all young witches and wizards, but untrained.

Oh yes, and two of the girls are pregnant.

Well, that's quite enough to be getting on with, Andromeda thinks. It's still murky whether the offspring will be werewolves themselves. Derwent and Smethwyck have made a site visit already for the physical examination of their young charges.

Andromeda takes out quill and parchment; Justin's missive has raised more questions even as it's answered some. And she's now a paid officer of the Foundation, which means that her curiosity is a matter of professional duty.

ooo

The next morning, there's a Floo call from Kingsley. She's only had time to get Teddy up and washed and fed, and there's Kingsley's face in the kitchen fire, asking if he might have a word.

"It depends on what that word is," she says, then asks him if he's summoning her in his capacity as Minister or as old friend.

"Some of each," he says.

"Then as friend, you'll leave me a bit of time to get presentable. Though you'll realize that you've called both of us." She indicates Teddy.

Kingsley nods. He takes conditions as he finds them, these days.

ooo

He's Transfigured the chair by his desk into her favorite again. Well, that means trouble, she would think… and there's an assortment of toys made available for Teddy. Ah, then, they're planning to be there for a while.

Kingsley looks at her across the desk. "So, it would seem that the duel went through."

"I wasn't aware that dueling was illegal." She adds, "Though I do hear that you had some correspondence with Molly Weasley on that point."

"On the point of what the result would be to our collective prestige were it to go through."

Andromeda is already feeling impatient, but she takes a breath to calm herself. "It was a private matter." _That's why we have dueling in the first place. Otherwise we'd be settling things in public, like the Muggles_.

"I've heard which curse finished it."

Andromeda reckons up who might have told him. It's either Molly or Felicitas. "So are you involving yourself in this as the Minister or as my old friend?"

"Some of each."

"It's a fait accompli, so it wouldn't seem to me that there's much point." She adds, "There's been more than the usual amount of fooling about with love potions, from the look of it. Amortentia, to be precise. I've lost a daughter to it, and the culprit confessed…"

Kingsley says, "I've seen the report from Derwent. There isn't much question that Ginny Weasley was dosed. Over-dosed, to be precise."

Andromeda sits quiet. He continues, "There's been untoward speculation about her case."

"Yes. I saw the _Prophet _article about the New Year's Ball. It would appear that Rita's at war. She had at Ginny rather comprehensively, I would say." She adds, "And Hermione Granger, but that's nothing new."

Kingsley clears his throat. "Ah, yes. Well. That would be another case." It's becoming clear that there's definitely some agenda here, and it's not personal. "Well, yes, that's something indeed. Have you seen this morning's _Prophet?_"

That's a rhetorical question, as all she's had time to do is to make herself and Teddy presentable. He hands it across the desk. There's a picture of Dolores Umbridge, from her days as Senior Undersecretary. (Interesting choice that, because there are more imposing pictures of her sitting in the great courtroom and presiding over hearings of the Muggle-born Registration Commission, but reminding the public of that phase of history would ill serve her cause just now.) The headline says, "War criminal or defender of the wizarding world? Dolores Umbridge speaks out on the werewolf threat, the Muggle-born menace, and the wizarding way of life." Below that, in red, blinks the notice, "_Prophet_ exclusive!" Rather redundant, that, since the _Prophet_ has enjoyed a monopoly since the _Quibbler_ was shut down in the late spring due to the destruction of the presses.

Kingsley says, "They printed that rather prematurely." He hands it across the desk to her: no longer the humble little newsletter but a thick magazine at least as imposing and colorful as the latest number of _Witch Weekly_.

The same picture of Dolores Umbridge appears on the cover. "Umbridge speaks! And the _Quibbler_ answers!" They've got the Umbridge opus, too, it would appear, and as she opens the magazine she realizes what else they have: a series of interviews with the foremost experts in the world on werewolf rehabilitation. There's Perdita Bennigsen-Bagshot, of the Swedish Institute for Lycanthropy Research, and the noted naturalist Rolf Scamander… She looks up. "Very heavy backup, I should say." She smiles. "So, Kingsley, who has the Umbridge opus officially? And why are you showing me this?"

"Officially, neither. Umbridge is on house arrest and administrative leave. On the other hand, I'm well aware she has sympathizers, which would include Rita Skeeter and the ownership of the _Prophet_." He says, "And some part of the Ministry. Though once things are beyond the walls, well, there is a tendency for them to _propagate_."

Which is to say that whoever gave the Umbridge memoirs to the _Prophet_ may have given them to the _Quibbler_ as well.

The Minister is not the Ministry, as Kingsley is well aware; two different factions appear to be battling it out under his nose. Someone gave the manuscript to Rita, and someone else got a duplicate for the Quibbler Press. Umbridge's memoirs are going to be published as a book (another of Rita's books, of course), and the Quibbler press will publish — is now publishing - the answering salvo. There are interviews with the werewolf researchers and with the werewolves themselves. Xeno and his backer have done an excellent job, though the difficulty is that Umbridge's version plays better with those paralyzed with fear. Umbridge's message is simple: _Get rid of them, kill them, wipe them out_.

On the other hand, the reply: _these are our own_, and (dryly enough) _they're only monsters one month out of the thirty. Some do worse than that in human shape._

_But better yet, there's a way out. It isn't perfect, but it's a great deal safer than locking the unfortunates outside the wall._ As Andromeda reads, she can hear the note of endless weary patience with the misinformed or the ill-intentioned, which must be answered over and over again as if the objections were raised in perfect good faith, which in the main they aren't. Not by the likes of Umbridge, whose campaign against the werewolves was another face of the Pureblood supremacy campaign; not from Rita, who likes to keep the waters roiled in the name of a 'good story', which sells papers and keeps her in good with her sources in the Ministry. (As it did when Rita was in the pay of Andromeda's brother-in-law, but that's another story, or rather, the preface to the current story.)

There's no mention, of course, of the recent incident that gave them a Muggle werewolf in the person of Nigel Black, nor of the reprisals against the werewolf packs.

When she looks up, she says to Kingsley, "So which side are you on?"

He says that the _second_ leak of the Umbridge opus was approved, actually, sub rosa. The Order does still have covert operatives in the Ministry, and honest ones too. It was a fight keeping some of them off the indictments list, but given that there were plenty of quiet little functionaries who might have been indicted for _due diligence to their assigned tasks_, and that number included some who were sitting on the War Crimes Commission itself …

What Andromeda knows, and her old friend does not need to explain, is that nominal lines of authority in the Ministry are not the true lines of power. There are scriveners whose connections on the Wizengamot give them true rank exceeding that of department heads; in response to any moves toward change at Ministerial level, there are unofficial but very much sanctioned campaigns of sabotage underway at nearly all times.

She hands the newspaper and the thick journal back to Kingsley, who sets them on his desk, and looks at her for the first time with the weary eyes of a _man of office_.

At length he tells her that they've restored her daughter's pension, and at the same time those of everyone else in the same position, and he's made certain that it will go through as planned by making an example of those implicated in the business of the trainee Auror invitations. It's too late, of course, to make up the political damage. He understands that Gabriel Thomas's son has sent a scathing reply back to the functionary who tried a test shot in that direction.

Andromeda frowns.

"Dean Thomas. He's a Half-blood. Interned during the war as a Muggle-born, of course…" He says, "I don't suppose you can make any headway with him, or any of the others? The ones on the Foundation, I mean."

She's quite sure, she says, that she has no idea what he means.

He sights. "Andromeda, I know you better than that. Dean Thomas. Justin Finch-Fletchley. Hermione Granger." He adds, "We've got Potter and Weasley, of course, but I know Weasley is one of yours. Both Weasleys, I mean William as well. And then there's young Ginevra, but that's another case entirely."

He sketches out the lines of the case: Ginny Weasley has been cleared of involvement in the death squads, and yes, they had been operating, and had been involved in some number of the killings of adolescent werewolves. He wouldn't be too sure of the political reliability of the Aurors even now, and there appear to have been two different factions, with some overlap: McConnell's group - which is to say the tendency with which she was affiliated, because she was by no means the chief mover, only a young hothead who'd been rather too vocal - who exacted vengeance on the Death Eaters and Snatchers, and then the rather more Pureblood faction, some of whom had Death Eater connections and went after werewolves. To complicate things further, there was the intersection of the two factions, whose killing was rather more ecumenical and included as well random bystanders against whom they had grudges.

And no, they haven't solved the killing of the seventh-year Slytherin students, which is why Millicent Bulstrode is under guard by Order affiliates and Derwent herself, who is no mean duelist.

None of this is for attribution, of course.

Andromeda can't resist an ironic half-smile; _of course not_, because the Fidelius will take care of that.

Kingsley has worries that there might be enough disaffected Muggle-borns even among those who remain—Granger, Finch-Fletchley, Thomas (who still counts himself as such)—that things might not be altogether calm in the post-war. They're all keeping a foot in both worlds, and then there are the solidarity cases—Lovegood and Longbottom come to mind, since they both refused the trainee-Auror offers—and then there's the whole business of Augusta Longbottom's hand in all this, and the rumblings from North America. They're sending an entire battalion of observers to the trials, it would appear. After much deliberation, all seven members of the Council of Ministers of the North American Confederation of Witches, Wizards, and Magical Beings, or representatives thereof, will be putting in an appearance, each with extensive Ministerial entourages. Rather too many. He doesn't like the look of it. Central Europe will be represented in similar numbers. Those look less like delegations than occupying armies.

The trials will satisfy no one, he says. Oh, they will follow the recommendations in the matter of _form_, but … definitely not in the spirit. The Pureblood hard-liners on the Wizengamot have made their weight felt, and vetoed the more reasonable tendency on the War Crimes Commission. The Commission, of course, was split, _by design, _between the Order and the Old Ministry, which is to say with Umbridge's protégés, and tie-breaking has been done by _the usual means_. The trials will be a spectacle that will not be forgotten for a hundred years, and his name will be on the whole thing although he had nothing to do with it, in fact fought it every inch of the way.

One doesn't give up. However, there are temptations. At least the fight against Voldemort was out in the open; one went on the run and resisted as opportunity presented itself and kept the defenseless out of the way of harm. There's nothing to complain of now that he's sitting in this office… except for the prospect of personal disgrace. Because one can't tell the truth outright; one is, after all, constrained by _traditional measures_.

All of this is told in a tone that would seem conversational and detached, did she not know Kingsley Shacklebolt these twenty-five years and more.

Finally he says, "Albus Dumbledore once told me that being Minister was an over-rated honor." He looks at her, his hands palm to palm in that gesture that looks like cogitation or prayer. "I didn't quite know what he meant, only that he'd turned down the job." Then a shadow passes over his features, which tells her that the compulsion has closed down his ability to speak further.

But they know each other well enough that she can follow the line of reasoning: the Wizengamot had less than pure motives in appointing an Order stalwart to the high office of Minister; he's hamstrung by the traditional bindings of the office, and there are matters of which he cannot speak, and meanwhile the Order looks to him as their representative.

ooo

The officers of the Remus Lupin Foundation meet early on a Saturday morning, at Shell Cottage as usual. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is there, with Justin. He's looking rather more cheerful than when she last saw him, which is confirmed when he takes her aside and says, "Thank you for talking with my mother." She smiles and asks him if the matter has progressed.

He says, "Yes. I spoke with Hannah, and she's allowed me to talk with her family and with Tom." (As Hannah is yet an apprentice at the Leaky Cauldron and will hold a strategic position when she does graduate to mastery, the master must interview any prospective spouse.) So it does appear that the matter is going forward. Andromeda thinks that it will be one of the more interesting matches of the post-war.

The other such match, of course, is in suspense, as Ginny is still in recovery from her poisoning. Kingsley has had words with Skeeter and her crew over at the _Prophet_ about their hounding of the young Gryffindor veterans, but it isn't clear that there's much to be done in that quarter. The _Prophet_ doesn't print retractions lately, only follow-up interviews with other informants. They still pretend there is no competition, even in the face of the resurrected _Quibbler _…

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley announces at the meeting that she will be giving an interview to Xeno Lovegood for the next number of his resurrected publication, in answer to the first installments of the Umbridge memoirs have come out in the Prophet. Umbridge has made very pointed commentary on the necessity of the werewolf legislation, with particular reference to the threat of these Dark Creatures in the dangerous post-war.

No little thanks to Umbridge herself, of course, Bill points out. If the werewolves were reckoned citizens of wizarding Britain, _full_ citizens, then there would be no need to form packs to give them an alternate society.

Fleur says that it's a good thing that they've been able to organize on the other side of the border, for which she's quite grateful to Mrs. Finch-Fletchley. Luckily, the Umbridge legislation didn't think to forbid the sort of thing that they're doing, because it never occurred to the former Senior Undersecretary that anyone would want to shelter and feed teenaged lycanthropes, or produce Wolfsbane Potion en masse, or any of the other things that they're undertaking.

There is a prohibition on werewolves attending Hogwarts, and it's very specifically written in. That would have followed Remus Lupin's tenure at Hogwarts, as would the prohibition against werewolves being employed in any capacity to do with wizarding children.

There's a rumor that Umbridge had tried to force through a provision that any werewolf who had found employment in violation of her rules would have to pay back any wages thus earned, but apparently that sort of ex post facto provision was too much even for the Fudge Ministry… because there were other applications to which such a principle might be put, and no one wanted to open the door to that.

And then there is Umbridge's disquisition on the Muggle-born Menace.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley doesn't believe that there's a Muggle-born menace. "Simply nonsense," she says. "The sort of idiot jingoism that they call into play to scare those who scare easily. Bugaboos and bogeymen," she says, "and it's high time that someone made a clear case for a different way of doing things."

And the prohibition against educating the young… well, that's simply foolishness. And in any case, with sufficient funds, it can be gotten around. They're already consulting with the Hogwarts faculty for a series of visiting lectures, and the two young wand-makers (a married couple, two of Gregorovich's former apprentices) have consented to fit the young witches and wizards with wands.

The prospect of up-front cash payment was a considerable inducement, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley reports. Apparently the Ministry has been running a tab with them, and if it weren't for the fact that their landlord is facing the same situation, they'd long since have been thrown out of their shop in Diagon Alley. Mr. Ollivander is still recovering his health, and intends to spend his efforts on training an apprentice to shoulder part of the burden of the trade.

So, that's how things stand. The opposition now feels sufficiently threatened to publicly attack them, which is actually a good sign, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says. "What's done in the open can be countered in the open, and Umbridge's campaign has a great many weaknesses."

The other order of business is to decide the roster for the next full-moon. There will be the usual pair on call at St. Mungo's, and then there will be the Potions team, under the direction of Horace Slughorn. For the time, he has called in some favors from former students and in addition will be producing small quantities of Wolfsbane himself, with the aid of the NEWTs revision group at Hogwarts, and that will do for the next two rotations, on 31 January and the second of March. The results of the NEWTs will be announced on the tenth of March, a much accelerated schedule since most of the examiners are on the Wizengamot and hence have duties for the War Crimes Trials. At that time, he will be approaching all those with O's on the Potions NEWT for employment with the Foundation. Slughorn has put the Wolfsbane Potion on the revision syllabus for those at Hogwarts and London, as if they were to be examined on it at NEWT level.

If they're to make it in quantity, Andromeda says, it would make sense to add it to the topics for the NEWT going forward. Then every witch and wizard qualified in Potions would also be qualified to provide Wolfsbane Potion for family and neighbors afflicted with lycanthropy, perhaps with a small subsidy for the ingredients…? Very like what the Defense Association has been doing with the teaching of the Patronus Charm.

ooo

The briefing done, Bill produces the Portkey that will take them to London to the townhouse that's been quietly nicknamed the 'Hogwarts Annex'.

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley pats down her hair and says, "My, that was unusual." She looks about her. "Rather abrupt, but efficient."

The townhouse is of a vintage similar to Grimmauld Place. In fact, Justin explains, it is a former property of the Lestrange family, properly Decommissioned and redeemed from Gringotts. It was seldom used by the family, though Bill assures them it's been gone over both by Madam Longbottom and himself, for peculiarities in the defenses as well as more exotic curses. The chief virtue of the location is that it's already fitted for Floo and equipped with the usual household defenses and charms.

The children—well, teenagers—are hanging about in what would have been the formal drawing room, which has been fitted out with squashy chairs and bookshelves; down the hall is the library. There's also a formal ballroom, which has been adapted for use by the visiting lecturers.

Another notable feature of the architecture of this house is that it has an expandable annex, which can generate as many guestrooms as needed. No doubt it dates back to a grander epoch of the now-extinct Lestrange line, when they hosted all of wizarding Britain—or all that counted—in these precincts. It's an ideal venue for this sort of facility, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley remarks. And such a nice view, out to the park.

The park is not one generally visible to Muggle Londoners. Bill said that part of the purchase price included the services of the entire Gringotts Curse-breaking Department to inspect the park for nasty surprises. They found a few in the former maze, but now it's a lovely place, and may suit well for the young persons to repair body and spirit after the rigors of the full moon.

The trees of the park are covered in snow, and there's a fountain, closed for the season.

Fleur says they're looking into the possibility of using it for low-altitude broom-flying practice, though that's a way in the future.

Overlooking the park, on the guest floor, are the house-parents' quarters. The house-parents are a Muggle-born witch and wizard, a childless couple in their thirties. They offer tea, and then they are joined by the social worker, a Miss Goldstein, who is the Muggle cousin of a young wizard who's currently preparing for his NEWTs with the London revision group. She had worked with refugee children from war zones, and this promises to be an interesting challenge as well. Already there's discussion of a cross-training program with St. Mungo's.

An impressive amount of physical plant has been assembled in the last weeks, but then adequate funds will permit that sort of thing, and Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is a decidedly organizing sort of woman.

The whole effort is being organized on their side of the border, of course. It's all quite new, and the residents are just getting settled in. They're still adjusting, of course, though it does help that they're doing this in the winter season, which does underline the advantages of an indoor life out of the elements.

ooo

Down the hall is yet another room, this one with an odd crackle of energy at the threshold. Shielding, Bill says, because this one is very special.

This room looks quite a bit like a Hogwarts common room, with its squashy chairs and cozy fire, but there's a striking difference; there are five or six teenagers, boys and girls, sitting about the room but rather than being clustered about the hearth their attention is turned to a box with flickering images…

"Television," Justin says proudly. "This is the Muggle Studies library."

Yes, Andromeda notices, there are paperback books on the shelves, very reminiscent of the stock in her former bookstore, and magazines, and more recent copies of several London newspapers, and a substantial library of videotapes.

And then there's a familiar face—fine-boned and supercilious—that looks up from the flickering light of the television.

"Madam Tonks," says Nigel Black, standing up to greet her.

"Nigel, how nice to see you," Andromeda says, taking his hand.

"They've got me here … explaining things." He says, "They love telly. You'd think they'd grown up with it." The look on his face indicates that this is an exotic notion. "Only they're a little unclear on the distinction between fiction and fact. They're convinced that _Dr Who_ is a documentary about a chap from the Department of Mysteries who has access to a late-model time-turner." He frowns. "Whatever that is."

"Well, he _can't_ be a Muggle," says one of the watchers. "And we're not convinced _you_ are, either. Not with a name like _Nigel Black_."

Nigel rolls his eyes at them, and then says, "And how is the charming Miss Granger?"

Ron Weasley speaks up for the first time. "Less than charmed with you, Black. It's a good thing I _didn't_ know, or I'd have put off a bit insisting on the new policy."

Nigel immediately draws back, with the pinched, icy look that recalls Regulus at his most supercilious. Ron says, "And don't give me that Draco Malfoy impression, either. We don't need more than one of him."

Bill frowns. "Take it outside, you two."

The teenagers all have looked up, with the eager attention that shows once more that real-life drama will trump the simulacrum.

No doubt there's a story there.

ooo

**Author's note:** Dear readers, thank you for your patience with the vagaries of Real Life (day job, winter illness, holiday season, and National Novel Writing Month). My hope is to post more frequently now that things have calmed down a bit (knock wood).


	46. Chapter 46

**Disclaimer:** I'm not J.K. Rowling; I'm only visiting her universe for nonprofit fun and edification. (No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended).

ooo

"Take it outside, you two." To Andromeda's surprise, they did; Nigel Black bowed ironically to the assembled teenagers, who looked at him with keen interest. He walked out into the hallway with Ron Weasley, and Andromeda found herself listening to their colloquy, which proceeded at first in hissed voices.

"So our Miss Granger is a popular girl, it would seem. It's not only the little ponce taking an interest, and our hefty northern lad…"

Ron said, "Come off it, Black. She told me what you did. She's not working on your side of the border _by choice_. You had to threaten her, and try to blackmail her into sleeping with you." Andromeda recognizes suppressed rage, and flicks a glance at Justin to let him know that he ought to keep an eye on the proceedings in the hallway.

Justin shifts to stand at the doorway, in a plainly listening posture, wand not yet in evidence but at the ready. Even if no one particularly likes Nigel, he's after all a Muggle, and Ron a fully armed wizard.

One of the girls, with sleek auburn hair – probably clean and combed for the first time in months – and green eyes, tips her head to one side and looks at Andromeda. There's something alert, foxy if not vulpine, in the gesture.

Finally the girl says, "Remus Lupin, right? The bloke with his name on all this." She gestures with one hand at the room: the free hand (for the other hand is occupied, fingers intertwined with those of the boy on the couch next to her). _One of the pregnant ones_, Andromeda thinks, taking in the round face and the glow. "He was right, after all. Though Greyback was right too. They hate us."

Andromeda has on her listening face, which seems to encourage the girl, for she continues, "The wizards. They hate us. Even though we'd be witches and wizards, too, if they'd just let us. Mrs. F. told us that Nigel bloke's the only Muggle one."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, "You're to be fully qualified, my dear. It's a matter of arranging the details."

The girl looks at her. "Greyback certainly didn't count on _your lot_ interfering." She smiles, rather cynically. It reminds Andromeda of the look she's seen on Dean's face, that sits uneasily on features so young. "He told us that Remus fellow was all wrong, that the wizards would make use of us and then throw us away, as usual. Look at what they did to him: let him starve. It was only the Old Spymaster who fed him, you know, and that for his own purposes. Or so Greyback said."

Andromeda asks mildly, "So what did you make of Greyback?"

"He taught us how to be a pack," she says.

"Though he _owed_ us," the boy next to her says. He's tall and rangy, though it's clear his frame would be burly if he were sufficiently fed. "He turned most of us, you know. And the ones who didn't go along …" He leaves the thought unfinished, with a look that tells her that he knows she's a veteran and perfectly well can fill in the details.

The girl turns her green eyes to her companion. "Wolves are better to their own than humans, that's certain," she says.

The boy looks at her with a protective and even proprietary glance. "We've been watching nature documentaries on wolves," he says. "They mate for life, you know. And look after each other's cubs." The girl's fingers tighten in his, and Andromeda suspects that the two of them would cuddle together if they weren't under the proper surveillance of adults. "More than you get from humans, that's for sure." The girl nods.

From the hall, there's a bark of laughter. Ron Weasley says, "Oh, you thought he was an _art student?_ That's a good one. Malfoy never made anything useful in his life. Do you know what _your cousin_ was about in the war? Torturer at a minimum, when he wasn't trying to save his own skin." His voice drops. "Believe me, Black, I see the resemblance. Slimy little blackmailing git. Throwing your money around, and she told me you went so far as to try to force her …"

There's no answer from Nigel Black. Justin is watching, an expression of faint disgust on his face.

Ron continues, "Hermione is worth a good hundred of you. I'd have let the wolves finish you off, after that."

Andromeda nods to the girl, to excuse herself, and steps into the line of sight to the hall. Nigel is staring at Ron Weasley, who has drawn his wand but has it pointed at the earth, in the at-ease position. The stubborn look on Nigel's face more than reminds her of her nephew, and the resemblance is underlined by the paleness of his face and the familiar bone structure. Nigel is scared but trying not to show it; Ron towers over him by half a head, not to mention the weapon very much in evidence. The Auror training has definitely taken, both in Ron's stance and the visible constraint in his manner.

Ron says, with eyes narrowed, "I never thought I'd say this, but your cousin's a better man than you. So far as I know, he's never tried to rape anybody."

Nigel narrows his eyes. "I wouldn't call it that."

"Oh no, what _do_ you call it when you tell a girl she's to come with you and _look willing for the cameras?"_ Ron says, with a tight smile, "Except you're a Muggle and it wouldn't be sporting, you'd have the whole lot of us drawing straws for the honor."

Nigel says, "Very impressive caveman impression you do."

Ron says, "It isn't the blokes that ought to worry you. Lavender said she'd personally cut off your descent, if you get my drift, if you ever even _thought_ about it again. About Hermione or anybody else."

"And who might Lavender be, when she's at home?"

"Somebody you'd best thank your lucky stars wasn't the one to take the call that night." Ron adds, "And if the rumors are true, even your cousin wouldn't be too pleased to find out what you'd tried."

Nigel seems to understand that Ron isn't going to raise a hand to him, in spite of the posture of threat. Or maybe his social privilege has given him a sense of impunity.

In any case, he looks Ron in the eye and says, "He has a rather proprietary manner, my _cousin_. If that's what he is."

"If Marius Black is your grandfather, then Draco's your cousin." Ron's hand, the one not holding the wand, balls into a fist at his side, and then he catches himself and the fingers uncurl. "I ought to lock the two of you in a room to sort it out. Except that wouldn't be sporting." Nigel doesn't understand the threat, and Ron doesn't know that it's empty. She can't imagine Draco doing much in the way of damage to Nigel with his fists.

Ron says, "And what else your cousin has on you, is that he admits when he's in the wrong. Never thought he had it in him."

Nigel says, "I don't see what business it is of yours."

Ron says, "It _is_ my business. Hermione is my friend. From the time we were eleven years old. You touch her, you even think about it, and you'll have the whole lot of us to contend with."

Andromeda looks back at the teenagers. They're listening raptly, as the television chatters quietly to itself in the corner. The drama going on in the hallway is far more interesting than anything on the screen.

The green-eyed girl smirks. "He's stupid, he is. Has to be a Muggle. No wizard would even try that."

Nigel narrows his eyes and says, "Nobody asked you."

She stands up, as does her boyfriend who's still holding her hand. Some number of those behind follow suit. They might well be the alpha couple of their little band, Andromeda thinks.

"You don't talk to us like that," the boy says. "It's our house."

Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, "Everyone sit down. Nigel," and she fixes him with a gimlet look before which he quails, "I would have thought better of you."

"Not me," mutters the girl. "He's a right git. And he doesn't even make a good wolf, I'd bet."

"Should have chewed off his arm," says a boy in the back. Oh dear, Andromeda thinks. is this the band that turned up in London on New Year's Eve?

"Shut it, Collum," says the green-eyed girl. "It wasn't anything personal." She glares at Nigel. "Not then, anyway. They just dumped us there."

"Eaten 'im, too, except he hasn't got any meat on him to speak of." Collum stares very hard at Nigel. "Not worth the effort." The green-eyed girl and her companion turn and glare at Collum, as the others watch in mild interest.

Collum looks defiant, and then Mrs. Finch-Fletchley looks at him, and his expression changes. He sits down.

The others sit down as well. No question as to the identity of the alpha: it's Justin's mother.

Ron says to Nigel, "I think you might want to consider following your cousin's example. Write her an apology."

Nigel stares at him, as if he's speaking Urdu, or maybe Martian.

Ron looks at him, with an expression usually reserved for something nasty on one's shoe. "Apology, _Nigel_. Foreign notion for you lot, I know. But your cousin's been a right arse for seven years now and he managed it, so you can give it a try." Andromeda is even more intrigued. "Nearly killed me, the little … More than once. But he wrote me New Year's and said he knew it, too. Made a list, he did. Everything back to the Hogwarts Express. Starting with trying to burn me alive, and working back from there."

Nigel's eyes widened at that.

"Said that one thing led to another, and he thought better of it. Said he knew it was Azkaban and no mistake about it, but he wanted me to know … " Ron's voice faltered a little. "That he hadn't even bloody paid attention. That it was him tried to poison me, and it wasn't even meant for me. Not that it's exactly flattering to a bloke to say, 'Oi, sorry mate, meant to kill the headmaster and almost got you instead.' A good thing Harry's a dab hand with a bezoar…"

Nigel had gone white, clearly not having reckoned on Draco's apparent penchant for setting people on fire and poisoning them, in what order he wouldn't like to think. And attempted assassination of headmasters was something apparently _not done_ at Eton, if Nigel's expression were any guide.

Ron said, "Although really it was his goon who cast the Fiendfyre. A gentlemanly touch, though, to take responsibility for it."

Andromeda had to confess herself impressed. Draco's letter of apology to Ron Weasley apparently had gone above and beyond the bare requirements, to a posthumous _noblesse oblige_ in the matter of his late minion Vincent Crabbe.

"So you might consider a letter of apology," Ron sums up. "Though there's no guarantee she'll accept it. And you'll still be on notice from the rest of us, mind."

Bill speaks up for the first time. "Based on what I've heard, I'd say Ron's right."

Nigel bites his lips and his blanched complexion goes from white to pink, with hectic flush in his cheeks. He narrows his eyes.

"And forget it about who your people are. Because we don't care." Ron is leaning forward now, eye to eye with Nigel. "You're only alive by accident, as far as anybody can tell. Your little friends here –" though the expressions in the circle of teenagers wouldn't justify the title – "tell us that someone dumped them there to do the job. You weren't even the main target." He laughs, a short sharp unhumorous bark. "One of Umbridge's people. Thought they'd create an _incident_ and get the weight of public opinion against the werewolves. Taking out Hermione would have been a bonus, too, though it didn't quite work out that way."

Andromeda says, "So they've been tracking the werewolves. They've known all along…"

"Someone has," Bill says. "It's tricky sorting out the factions, but Percy's best guess is that it's one of Umbridge's protégés in the Ministry. Not clear if there were direct orders from Umbridge, given she's on house arrest." He frowns. "On the other hand, given the nonsense in the _Prophet_, it's not clear that house arrest actually means anything."

It's been less than a week since the new year, and already all of those promises about peace and prosperity are looking a bit tatty. Andromeda looks at Bill and quirks an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, and your nephew," Bill says. "It appears he's been comprehensive."

Ron adds, "I had a note from Katie Bell. She said she'd gotten an Owl from him." He adds, "He went into detail about the cursed necklace, quite a bit." He frown, having forgotten about Nigel for the moment. "He's said the same thing to everyone, that the letters are personal and not to be brought into evidence in the trial."

Nigel is staring. "The trial?"

"Your cousin's a war crimes defendant," Ron says, which reply appears to leave Nigel even more in the dark.

Andromeda adds, "This is a civil war, and my sister's family was on the wrong side of it." Nigel stares at her. "Legally, morally, and militarily. My brother-in-law is a rather comprehensive failure."

"Do you mind awfully…" A look of unaccustomed confusion crosses his face. "I mean, I don't understand a bit of it. Clear as mud, the whole thing. And this one" – he indicates Ron – "seems to think he's speaking English."

Andromeda says, "Ron is from the other side of the border."

"And you?"

"I was born here but I crossed over. My husband's from your world." She says, "It's all very confusing at first, but it will come clearer in time." She adds, "In the meantime, I think you'd do well not to involve yourself in any more fights. I'm _not pleased_ with your conduct toward Hermione."

"She _threatened _me."

Ron says, "Percy and Neville between them thought she'd been up for forty hours at least." He adds, "I thought my New Year's was busy. Turns out I had nothing to complain about. And if you did half of what she says you did, you're bloody lucky to be alive."

"Language," Mrs. Finch-Fletchley says, and Ron mumbles something that might pass for an apology if the words were audible.

"I think we should continue this conversation elsewhere," Bill says, sotto voce. Andromeda nods.

The tour continues as if nothing had happened, which of course fools nobody, least of all the wary and all-too-wise teenaged werewolves. Mrs. Finch-Fletchley is a stickler for the proprieties, though, and no mean diplomat. Nigel behaves himself, in front of the children. It's going to be an interesting full-moon season in three weeks, she reflects. They'll be snarling and snapping at each other before they're even in vulpine form.

ooo

When it's time to go, Bill takes her aside and says that they'll be going up to Shell Cottage. He has a few confidential inquiries to make, and then Percy will be joining them to discuss some other business. She nods, not missing the order. Whatever Bill has to discuss is something he doesn't want Percy involved in.

It's a good thing she has an excellent memory for which secrets she's keeping for whom, where _Fidelius_ doesn't keep track for her.

Fleur is smiling at the door when they Apparate to the barrier. Andreomeda notices that the defenses are unchanged, and if she doesn't mistake they've been tweaked a bit. Once they're inside, Bill sweeps off his cloak and hangs it up, and takes Andromeda's cloak as well. Fleur brings them hot tea, and asks how the tour went.

"Our Muggle guest is making no friends," Bill says. "On the other hand, the young people are quite forthright about the uses to which they've been put. The lot from Manchester have been talking, too, and Millicent with them." Andromeda frowns; the Bulstrode girl had seemed quite uncommunicative a few days ago. "She's been talking to Derwent and Slughorn." He adds, "House solidarity goes a long way with her."

He says, "But really, we're here to talk about something quite different." He gestures toward the cup of hot tea on the table in front of her. "It tastes much better when it's fresh."

Obediently, she drinks. The tea is one she doesn't recognize, with a light floral scent. "Quite good," she agrees. Fleur presides over the tea ceremony like a priestess, although she and Bill put out a rather eclectic selection of treats. Today it's madeleines and something Greek, puff pastry and walnuts and honey. She chooses the delicate shell-shaped pastries; the other looks unmanageably sticky.

Fleur smiles. "Percy likes those," she says. Andromeda is too civilized to hurry things by bolting the tea and stuffing her mouth with pastry, but she finds herself feeling impatient; there's something in the air.

Bill says, somewhat ceremoniously, "You know that there's something afoot. Something dangerous."

"You mean the business for which you recruited Dean and Luna."

He nods. "We have the word back. The contracts between the Foundation and the Ministry don't bind you personally, even as an officer or employee of the Foundation," he says. "On the other hand, there's question as to whether we should try to recruit you for an active role."

She waits him out.

"After all, Teddy has been orphaned once already," Fleur says.

They both look at her. She says, "It might be a little clearer if you were to specify." She sighs and adds, "Of course, you have the option of _Fidelius_ or even _Obliviate_, if it comes to that."

Fleur shakes her head, and Bill says, "No. Not _Obliviate._ That's precisely the problem. We want someone to remember… if it all goes pear-shaped." He says, "Percy is worried, about Hermione. So we thought we might want to have a back-up. More than one. Because Hermione's been carrying it alone, and her health is getting more than a bit precarious."

She shakes her head. "I don't think I understand."

"Hermione and … some _colleagues _… think they may have worked out a way…" She feels her eyes widen. Bill's pauses seem to anticipate that she'll be shocked.

She thinks about the evening drawing on, and the fact she really should be returning to Grimmauld Place, even though Ginny has been more than good-natured about looking after Teddy. She doesn't think that much will shock her.

"To do what?" she asks, trying not to sound too annoyed.

"To Banish the Dementors."

Bill opens his mouth to explain further, but then there's a knock on the door. For the first time, she hears him swear under his breath. "Percy, damn him. He's early. We'll talk about this in a day or two, all right?"

She nods, and Bill casts _Fidelius_.

_Taken aback_ doesn't begin to cover it.

ooo

Percy has already Vanished the snow from his cloak, and for that matter dried it, before crossing the threshold. He is a punctilious and courteous guest, she thinks, and why is it that he's not to be trusted with a discussion of Hermione's project?

Percy sits down without preamble, takes the tea cup proffered by Fleur, and accepts a plate with three madeleines. "No more than that," he quips, "if they're worth a million words apiece."

Fleur smiles at what's apparently an old joke between them. "Only if you're Marcel Proust," she says.

"Who didn't write about proper use of time-turners," Percy says, "but maybe he ought to have." His slight smile vanishes. "Joking aside, that's the agenda item, you know." He sips the tea, and then adds, "It's not a secret anymore, if (let's see)" – he puts down the cup and saucer to count out on his fingers – "I know, and" (a glance at Andromeda) "you know, and Ron certainly knows, and Neville, and Augusta because Neville's confirmed her suspicions, and of course Minerva McGonagall and Boudicca Derwent." He adds, with the mildness of tone that tells Andromeda that he's deeply angry, "those unforgivable bastards at the Ministry. They signed off on it, because it seemed useful to them." He looks at each of his listeners in turn, and then frowns.

"Useful," he says, "as in they're counting on her to run herself into the ground trying to change what can't be changed." He adds, "They're half right. She's running herself into the ground."

Fleur nods. "She's looking worse by the day. I thought she was falling ill."

"She was up for forty hours on New Year's Eve," Percy says. "Ron and Augusta and Neville and I put our heads together on it. Augusta says she dosed her with Dreamless Sleep, but that sort of trick only works once or twice. And Neville says she seems to be convinced that there are things that no one else can do, that she's indispensable."

The thin vertical crease appears between his brows. "Which might be close to the truth, but only _close._"

Andromeda says, "So what are you proposing?"

Percy looks her in the eye. "We're going to step in before it gets any worse." He blinks, as if there's something in his eye—and there is, for Andromeda sees a brief glint of tears—frowns again, and says, "Augusta only just convinced me that I didn't have to carry everything myself. Convincing Hermione, on the other hand…" He sighs. "It's going to require a committee."

ooo

**Author's note: **It's been much too long since the last posting, I know. Factors include day job (thus far your Humble Author has escaped layoff), a burgeoning Original Fiction career (five projects currently in process), and a major struggle with plotting. I will try to be more regular with all stories from here onward, but must warn the Faithful Readership that weekly updates are probably a thing of the past. Thank you all for your patience.


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